Box Office

Dark Knight Takes $1 Billion

Ledger’s last movie was highest grossing film of 2008.

Last year’s Batman movie, The Dark Knight, featuring Heath Ledger as The Joker in his final screen role before his drug induced death, has grossed $997 million at box offices worldwide, making it the world's best performing movie in 2008, according to movie industry research site Box Office Mojo. The movie’s runaway success gave Warner Bros an 18.5 percent share of the American film market in 2008, up from 14.7 percent last year. The studio took $1.75 billion, up from $1.41 billion in 2007. Paramount was in second place with US box office takings of $1.56 billion. It is thought Warner Bros was the best performing movie studio globally in 2008, although the worldwide figures are still being calculated. And The Dark Knight is likely to get a fresh boost when the Oscars are decided next month: Ledger is strongly tipped to win a posthumous Best Actor Award.