Dark Knight's Boffo Box Office

Christopher Nolan may not be as familiar to moviegoers as George Lucas or James Cameron, but The Dark Knight director is joining them as the man behind one of the largest-grossing box office hits in history. "The Dark Knight" took in $26 million to finish as the number one movie for the fourth straight weekend. It beat the stoner comedy "Pineapple Express," which opened in second place with $22.4 million,. The weekend haul lifted the Warner Brothers Batman sequel to No. 3 on the all-time domestic box-office charts with $441.5 million, behind only "Titanic" and the original "Star Wars." "The Dark Knight" is on track to surpass Episode IV of the "Star Wars" series by next week. The weekend's other wide release, "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2," opened at No. 4 with $10.8 million, raising its total to $19.7 million since debuting Wednesday. Nolan burst onto the Hollywood scene with 2002's film noir "Memento," which earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directlyfor the Screen.