Cineplex Entertainment is riding high over the success of Warner Bros.’ The Dark Knight, which yielded the exhibitor its biggest opening weekend ever.

‘Everybody expected that this film would be big… I don’t think anybody expected it to be as big as it ended up being,’ said Cineplex spokesperson Pat Marshall on Monday, though she could not disclose box office figures.

The sequel to 2005’s Batman Begins raked in US$158 million at the North American box office, beating the previous all-time opening weekend record of $151 million set last year by Spider-Man 3.

Dark Knight played on more than 300 of Cineplex’s 1,337 screens, with Toronto’s Scotiabank theater among the top five locations in North America for box office revenue, says Marshall. Cineplex, a publicly traded company, does not reveal its week-to-week receipts.

The audiences skewed slightly towards males, but were for the most part evenly split between men and women.

Great reviews, in combination with the death of Heath Ledger — who has received Oscar buzz for his role as The Joker — added to the film’s appeal.

‘Everybody in this business just realizes what a true loss of talent it is… It’s so obviously demonstrated in this film that he was such a huge talent,’ Marshall says.

It’s been a good summer for Cineplex thus far, according to Marshall, who says that titles including Alliance Films’ Journey to the Center of the Earth continue to do well, in part because it is in 3D.

‘[Journey] certainly didn’t experience the fall-off in attendance that films traditionally do from opening weekend and beyond.’

Asked whether this summer might beat last year’s $4-billion record-breaker, Marshall would only say that the numbers bode well for the industry overall.

Meanwhile, Alliance Vivafilm’s cult comedy Cruising Bar 2 is on top of the Canadian-made charts for the third week in a row. The Quebec sequel, about four men roaming the bar scene, has generated nearly $2.7 million at the box office since opening June 27.

Rounding out the top five for the July 11-17 frame are Maple Pictures’ comedy Young People Fucking with $465,267 in cumulative receipts, Maximum Films’ documentary My Winnipeg with $105,439, and Alliance’s The Stone Angel, with a box office take of over $477,000 after 10 weeks in theaters. Seville Picture’s doc Global Metal hangs on to the number five spot with $34,060 after four weeks.