Dark Night.. Here I come! - Heath Ledger brings record crowds

This week me and my friends are planning to watch Dark Night, everyone says it was so good which made me excited to watch it already. It just started and now a Box Office Hit! One thing that excites me is to watch Heath Ledger on his Joker role. I know he did a great job on this. Weee!!! really exciting.. Got to bring good and enough snacks inside, they say the movie was a bit long, but was really worth it! So Dark Knight.. Here I come! :)

Anyways, I've read an article about the success of Dark Night, Joker made a big part on this.. sharing this to you guys.. :)

FANS keen to see Heath Ledger's performance in his final film have propelled The Dark Knight to a US box-office record.

Buoyed by excellent reviews, exceptional word of mouth and strong interest in the late Australian actor's last completed role, the Batman adventure yesterday set a record forany midnight debut.

The movie - which also stars Christian Bale, Michael Caine and Maggie Gyllenhaal - earned $US18.5 million ($19 million) from its midnight screenings in 3040 theatres.

The Dark Knight outstripped the previous midnight record, set by Star Wars Episode III: The Revenge Of The Sith.

That film, which had been eagerly awaited by Star Wars fans, grossed almost $US17 million from 3663 opening venues.

Some industry observers foresee The Dark Knight making as much as $US134 million over the weekend - another record.

The highest single-day opening record in the US is held by Spider-Man 3, which made $US61 million.

The Dark Knight, the follow-up to 2005's Batman Begins, opened in Australia on Wednesday and is also expected to break local box-office records.

Some Hollywood pundits are tipping Ledger for a posthumous Oscar nomination in the Best Supporting Actor category for his role as The Joker.

"We've been thrilled by the response to The Dark Knight, first from critics and now from audiences,'' Warner Bros Pictures spokesman Dan Fellman said.

"From our earliest screenings, the buzz on the film has been white-hot ... and it hasn't let up.''

In the US, The Dark Knight was shown on a record number of movie screens nation-wide.

Across the country, 4366 theatres showed the film on its opening day, a figure that outstripped the wide bow of Disney's Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End, which touted a theatre count of 4362.

Batman Begins, which premiered in June, 2005, earned a whopping $US15.5 million on its first day.

Both films were directed by British writer, producer and director Christopher Nolan.

Farewell to Heath Ledger

-smh.com

Heath Ledger, the Australian-born actor whose breakthrough role as a gay cowboy in the 2005 movie "Brokeback Mountain" earned him a nomination for an Academy Award, was found dead Tuesday in an apartment in Manhattan with sleeping pills near his body, the police said.

The police said Mr. Ledger, 28, was found naked on the floor near the bed in an apartment in SoHo that he had been renting. The chief police spokesman, Paul J. Browne, said the police did not suspect foul play.

“There was no indication of a disturbance,” he said, adding that there were no signs that Mr. Ledger had been drinking. Nor were any illegal drugs found in the loft, which takes up the entire fourth floor. Neighbors said Mr. Ledger had occupied it for several months.

Police officials said that a bottle of prescription sleeping pills was found on a nearby night table, but that they did not know whether the pills had anything to do with Mr. Ledger’s death. Officers who checked the apartment found other prescription medications in the bathroom. A spokeswoman for the medical examiner’s office said an autopsy would be conducted on Wednesday.

Mr. Browne said no obvious indication of suicide, like a note, was found in the bedroom.

Mr. Ledger had become a familiar figure in his SoHo neighborhood — and something of a fixture in gossip columns — since moving there after he broke up with the actress Michelle Williams who played his wife in “Brokeback Mountain.”

There were reports of hand-holding and lip-locking with various actresses and models, and sightings at restaurants and cocktail bars. He had clashed with paparazzi in Australia, but in New York, where there is no shortage of problem-causing partygoers, “he certainly wasn’t one of them,” said Paul Sevigny, an owner of the Beatrice Inn, a West Village club that Mr. Ledger frequented.

“He was really polite and nice,” said Mr. Sevigny.

The police said Mr. Ledger’s body was found after a masseuse arrived at the apartment at 2:45 p.m. for her regular appointment with Mr. Ledger. A housekeeper let her in and knocked on the door of Mr. Ledger’s bedroom. No one answered.

The housekeeper and the masseuse pushed open the bedroom door and saw Mr. Ledger, unconscious, on the floor. They shook him but could not revive him, and then called for help, the police said. The housekeeper told officers that she had heard him snoring in the bedroom around 12:30 p.m., the police said.

-NYTimes