"The Dark Knight" has grossed an estimated $63-$65 million in its first day of business to be the single biggest opening day in history - easily beating Sony's "Spider-Man 3" with $59.8 million.

The film opened at midnight and that single session pulled in $18.2 million, outgrossing Fox's "Star Wars, Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith" midnight screenings which took in $16.9 million in 2005. Estimates for the weekend are now in flux with the $151 million three-day opening weekend record set by "Spider-Man 3" looking likely to fall.

For once the critics and the audience seem to be on the same page. At Rotten Tomatoes it scored a 94% positive score - second only to "Wall-E" with 96% in terms of wide releases this year. More telling however is that it and "Wall-E" are tied for an average score of 8.5/10 from the critics which is easily the best single score of the year so far for any film - even among the limited releases. Comparatively its throttled its best-reviewed rival "Spider-Man 2" (93% & 8.2/10) and its predecessor "Batman Begins" (84% & 7.7/10).

At Metacritic the story is equally stellar with an 82/100 critic score and 9.5/10 user score - once again "Wall-E" beat it on the critic score (93/100) but not on the user score (9.1/10).