Holy Hyperbole-Laden Box Office Report, Batman!

Dude here again. I want you to prepare yourself for the biggest, most amazing and important box office report of my career, and of possibly your life. Never again will you witness something as miraculous as the numbers I am about to report to you. Sit yourself down and get ready to have your mind blown so much that it's gonna melt your face right off like you just removed the lid from the Ark of the Covenant.

This weekend, in a surprise to absolutely nobody at all, The Dark Knight opened up. And it opened up big. Really big. How big? Let's go to the numbers, shall we? (All in millions, remember, and these are the studio estimates. The actuals will be available on Monday).

1. The Dark Knight (WB)- $1,000,000,000; 4366 screens, week 1, $1,000,000,000 total

7. Space Chimps (Fox) $7,350,000, 2511 screens, week 1, $7,350,000 total

So those are the numbers, but what do they mean? Well, it means Batman managed to break every single record in existence. Every single one. It made one billion dollars! It singlehandedly restored the damage down from the 4-month Writer's Strike on Hollywood. In 3 days!!!

The Dark Knight managed to play on the most amount of screens (4366 locations, 4 more than Pirates last year) and most places cancelled their other shows of other movies (like Meet Dave, Love Guru, and the Happening) meaning that The Dark Knight played on something close to 20,000 screens. Multiply that by the amount of shows per screen, and it means that the film played over 100,000 times!

There's more, too! It made the most in 3 days than any other motion picture in the history of all time. It took in $18 million on the midnight shows alone, to take in $66 million on Friday alone. (Biggest opening day). The IMAX screens have been sold out for weeks, setting records for IMAX pre-sales. It had the largest per screen average of the weekend, to boot!

That's not all. Since it's release Friday, the stock market saw a remarkable upswing, and the price of oil was lowered by $50 a barrel! The Dark Knight also managed to cure several diseases, including Syphilis and Restless Leg Syndrome. It restored sight to a group of blind people, and brought hope and faith to a small town in Nebraska, who had almost given up entirely. It took gold in the 50 AND 100 meter dash, and is poised for silver in several other events in the Olympics, which haven't even occurred yet. It has been nominated for several Academy Awards already, in addition to its Nobel Peace Prize nomination. (Bono, watch your back). And there are rumors that the image of Heath Ledger giving the thumbs have been showing up in spilled popcorn messes in theaters across the world.

Which means only one thing: Space Chimps failed to capture the global zeitgeist like the ads would have us believe. This brings shame to all.

There you have my amazing break down. Next week, even more records will be broken, as The Dark Knight tries to jump over 17 buses (2 more than Evel Kenieval!!) while translating the forgotten texts of the lost city of Atlantis. Oh, and the new X-Files movie comes out, too.

Until next weekend....