Variety reports that the weekend tally was even bigger than estimated:

Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures’ “The Dark Knight” rocketed the Batman film franchise into the superhero stratosphere as it nabbed the highest weekend opening ever in grossing an official $158.3 million — even more than Sunday’s estimate of $155.3 million.

Tally easily beats the $151.1 million opening of “Spider-Man 3” in May 2007. “Dark Knight” enjoyed a better-than-expected Sunday. Final figure of $158.3 million was released Monday morning.

Here’s an interesting tidbit:

“Dark Knight” easily soared past the $47 million earned by Nolan’s “Batman Begins” when opening in summer 2005. Sequel could gross as much as $220 million in its first week domestic–more than the final domestic gross of “Batman Begins,” which cumed $205 million domestically. “Batman Begins” grossed another $166 million internationally.

As it stands, The Dark Knight has pretty much annihilated all previous box office records:

• Largest number of opening theaters: 4,366.
• Biggest midnight preview gross: $18.489 million in 3,040 theatres (supplants Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, $16.9 million in 2,915 theaters in 2005).
• Biggest IMAX Midnight Previews.
• Biggest single day gross: $67.850 million (supplants the $59,841,919 set by Spiderman 3 in 2007).
• Biggest opening weekend gross: $155.34 million (supplants the $151,116 million set by Spiderman 3 in 2007).
• Biggest opening weekend of 2008: $151.340 million
• Biggest July opening ever (supplants Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest).

Warner Bros. has continued to drain the poetry, fantasy, and comedy out of Tim Burton’s original conception for “Batman,” (1989), completing the job of coarsening the material into hyperviolent summer action spectacle.

Now, Denby might not necessarily think Tim Burton created Batman, he could very well be referring to the original cinematic conception. If so, that makes it even more unacceptable. A film critic should understand the art of film and, more importantly, the unique vision of each individual auteur. Perhaps Denby thinks every director should aspire to imitate Tim Burton’s fantastic style of filmmaking.

Denby is the first major film critic to give The Dark Knight a negative review. (Apparently, it’s not as good as Hancock.) I won’t see the film until Thursday night, so I can’t say whether I agree with him or not, but calling the film a “hyperviolent summer action spectacle” seems to contradict nearly every other review. In fact, many critics have stated that The Dark Knight isn’t typical summer fare. One might wonder if David Denby wrote a negative review just for the sake of being the sole voice of dissent.

Roger Ebert gives it four stars:

“Batman” isn’t a comic book anymore. Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” is a haunted film that leaps beyond its origins and becomes an engrossing tragedy. It creates characters we come to care about. That’s because of the performances, because of the direction, because of the writing, and because of the superlative technical quality of the entire production. This film, and to a lesser degree “Iron Man,” redefine the possibilities of the “comic-book movie.”

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly:

In this, the last performance he completed before his death, Ledger had a maniacal gusto inspired enough to suggest that he might have lived to be as audacious an actor as Marlon Brando, and maybe as great.

New York Magazine’s David Edelstein:

It’s a shock—and very effective—to see a comic-book villain come on like a Quentin Tarantino reservoir dog. But then the novelty wears off and the lack of imagination, visual and otherwise, turns into a drag. The Dark Knight is noisy, jumbled, and sadistic.

David Ansen, Newsweek:

Nolan dispenses with the stylized Gothic sets we’re accustomed to in the series: he makes no attempt to hide the fact that Gotham City is modern Chicago. Gone, too, is the antic sense of humor that Tim Burton brought to the show. There’s not a touch of lightness in Bale’s taut, angst-ridden superhero, and as the two-and-a-half-hour movie enters its second half, the unvarying intensity and the sometimes confusing action sequences take a toll. You may emerge more exhausted than elated. Nolan wants to prove that a superhero movie needn’t be disposable, effects-ridden junk food, and you have to admire his ambition. But this is Batman, not “Hamlet.” Call me shallow, but I wish it were a little more fun.

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine:

…Nolan has a more subversive agenda. He wants viewers to stick their hands down the rat hole of evil and see if they get bitten. With little humor to break the tension, The Dark Knight is beyond dark. It’s as black — and teeming and toxic — as the mind of the Joker. Batman Begins, the 2005 film that launched Nolan’s series, was a mere five-finger exercise. This is the full symphony.

ComingSoon.net:

Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” is another unforgettable offering from the visionary that defies all expectations by creating a serious “superhero” movie for grown-ups, one so grounded in a brutal reality you’re left in a cold sweat by its stalwart refusal to cater to escapist fantasies. While one might hesitate to throw around overused words like “masterpiece,” it’s refreshing that “The Dark Knight” is not a movie that can be viewed and easily discarded like so much other summer fare.

Dark Horizons:

It demands intelligence, maturity and attention, but as a reward delivers a film that will justifably sit high on many Top Ten lists at the end of the year. Certainly as major studio releases go it rarely gets better in quality than this.

Variety:

…Christopher Nolan puts all of Gotham City under a microscope in “The Dark Knight,” the enthralling second installment of his bold, bracing and altogether heroic reinvention of the iconic franchise. An ambitious, full-bodied crime epic of gratifying scope and moral complexity, this is seriously brainy pop entertainment that satisfies every expectation raised by its hit predecessor and then some.

Hollywood Reporter:

Nolan is one of our smarter directors. He builds movies around ideas and characters, and “Dark Knight” is no exception. The ideas here are not new to the movie world of cops and criminal, but in the context of a comic book movie, they ring out with startling clarity. In other words, you expect moralistic underpinnings in a Martin Scorsese movie; in a Batman movie, they hit home with renewed vigor.

Kevin Smith:

…This is an epic film… It’s the “Godfather II” of comic book films and three times more earnest than “Batman Begins” (and fuck, was that an earnest film). Easily the most adult comic book film ever made. Heath Ledger didn’t so much give a performance as he disappeared completely into the role; I know I’m not the first to suggest this, but he’ll likely get at least an Oscar nod (if not the win) for Best Supporting Actor. Fucking flick’s nearly three hours long and only leaves you wanting more (in a great way). I can’t imagine anyone being disappointed by it. Nolan and crew have created something close to a masterpiece.

Todd Gilchrist, IGN Movies:

Nolan’s sequel surpasses the original with an intense, disturbing masterpiece.

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone:

No fair giving away the mysteries of The Dark Knight. It’s enough to marvel at the way Nolan — a world-class filmmaker, be it Memento, Insomnia or The Prestige — brings pop escapism whisper-close to enduring art. It’s enough to watch Bale chillingly render Batman as a lost warrior, evoking Al Pacino in The Godfather II in his delusion and desolation. It’s enough to see Ledger conjure up the anarchy of the Sex Pistols and A Clockwork Orange as he creates a Joker for the ages. Go ahead, bitch about the movie being too long, at two and a half hours, for short attention spans (it is), too somber for the Hulk crowd (it is), too smart for its own good (it isn’t). The haunting and visionary Dark Knight soars on the wings of untamed imagination. It’s full of surprises you don’t see coming. And just try to get it out of your dreams.

Staci Layne Wilson, horror.com:

Martin Scorsese’s The Departed. Michael Mann’s Heat. Brian de Palma’s The Untouchables. And now, Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight can join the ranks as one of the best crime dramas in modern movie history. It’s only incidental it’s set in the fictional gritty city of Gotham, and it just happens to feature a superhero wearing a bat-suit and an arch-villain in clown makeup.

David Letterman praises Heath Ledger’s performance on The Late Show.

If you can’t understand the bile excreting from her mouth, perhaps this translation will help.

The subject doesn’t even match the content of the email. Here I am thinking I’m about to find out how to give my lady uninhibited pleasure, when all of the sudden I’m sucker punched with the news that Senator McCain was found unconscious in toilet. He wasn’t found unconscious on toilet but rather in toilet. That’s one big toilet.