Ledger Propels Dark Knight Sellouts

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Fueled by the untimely death of and reported brilliant performance by Heath Ledger, Bat-mania is at fever pitch. The New York Times said tickets for July 18 screenings of The Dark Knight are such a hot commodity theatres are scheduling 6 am screenings for those who didn’t get into midnight and 3 am screenings.

Collectors are also scrambling to snap up action figures representing Ledger’s final role, the demented supervillain Joker. New York toy stores saw their entire stock of Ledger action figures vanish in minutes. It wasn’t hard to figure out why as the $9.99 figures soon turned up on eBay going for more than $50.

In the midst of all this, reviews coming in for this latest Batman installment have been universally positive. Ledger is drawing such rave accolades that there is talk of nominating him for a posthumous Oscar. Christian Bale is still getting good notices for his turn as the tortured hero Batman. Reports coming in so far also say Knight is a more action-oriented turn than Batman Begins, much of which focused on the journey Bruce Wayne had to undertake to become The Bat.