Dark Knight, the movie that stars Christian Bale continued its romp in the box office for the fourth straight weekend. For this week, the stoner movie ‘Pineapple Express’ failed to knock off the Batman flick off the first place position. The movie that stars Seth Rogen and James Franco was rated R and a Sony Pictures release. The movie is about a small-time dealer and a ruthless drug lord who has witnessed a murder scored gold at the box office and took home $22.4 million for the weekend. The movie raised its total to a hefty $40.4 million since its opening Wednesday. Though the figures by this movie are impressive, this is not enough to push the Christian Bale starrer off the charts.

For the week, Dark Knight managed to add another $26 million and this figure boosted the already hefty sum of $441.5 million for its domestic production. The latest updated figures for the Batman movie have effectively pushed the ‘The Dark Knight’ ahead of ‘Shrek 2’ on the all-time list. The number one highest grossing movie of all time was ‘Titanic’. The figures and Batman’s new place on the record books was announced by Paul Dergarabedian, the President of Media by Numbers.

The last movie to occupy the top position in the box office for four straight weekends was Lord of the Rings: Return of the King and this happened in December 2003. The head of the Warner’s domestic production cited a number of factors that helped made Dark Knight a success in the box office.

Dan Fellman argued that the success of the movie can be traced to repeat business, the popularity among older men and infrequent movie goers and the continued strong showing of the movie on Imax screens.

He further predicted that the movie will eventually gross around $520 million.

Popularity: 41% [?]