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Batman may sink 'Titanic' |
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Written by Dwayne Robinson
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“The Dark Knight” topped the weekend box office for the fourth consecutive week.
And Bloomberg News reports that the Batman sequel is now the third highest-grossing movie of all time – just behind “Star Wars” and “Titanic.”
“The Dark Knight” is just $20 million short of surpassing the $461 million “Star Wars.” The $601 million record set by 1997’s “Titanic” may be harder to capsize.
The credit to this phenomenal showing has to go to the late Heath Ledger, whose performance as Batman’s arch-nemesis “The Joker” has been critically acclaimed.  Image courtesy of TheDarkKnight.com. But is Ledger’s depiction worthy of an Oscar nod?
Yes. No. And maybe.
Yes, Ledger’s performance far exceeds that of any comic book-based super villain, including Academy Award winner Jack Nicholson’s portrayal of the maniacal clown in Tim Burton’s 1989 “Batman.” Nicholson got a Golden Globe nomination for the role. Ledger’s Joker performance has near erased any memory of Nicholson’s and created an edgier, funnier, creepier villain.
On the other hand, the 2008 Joker had to share the screen awkwardly with another foe – Harvey “Two Face” Dent. This distracted from an otherwise Oscar-worthy performance. There were long stretches on camera later in the film where Ledger’s role was tertiary as Dent inexplicably and unnecessarily took center stage. Dent sucked up so much screen time that the climatic final battle between The Joker and Batman was anything but.Still, whether Ledger will get a posthumous Oscar nod will largely depend on who the other contenders are this year. Academy Award nominations don’t occur in a vacuum, and whether Ledger gets the nod will strictly depend on who’s he up against.
An Oscar nomination is great sendoff for a great actor like Ledger, who never won an Academy Award. But giving him the rare honor of a posthumous Oscar is going a little too far.
His depiction of The Joker was good but not that good.
Here is the rest of this weekend’s Top 10 list:
1. "The Dark Knight" $26M
2. "Pineapple Express" $22.4M
3. "The Mummy" $16.1M
4. "Sisterhood" $10.8M
5. "Step Brothers" $8.9M
6. "Mamma Mia!" $8.1M
7. "Journey" $4.9M
8. "Hancock" $3.3M
9. "Swing Vote" $3.1M
10. "Wall-E" $3M
[Bloomberg.com, Wikipedia.com]
Dwayne Robinson is TheSequitur.com's executive editor and a journalist in south Florida.
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