Sorry, I meant to say “The Dark Knight was one of the best action movies ever”, but all that wouldn’t fit in the title space.  Raking in $198 million in it’s first weekend, plus that added bonus of $18 million just on the midnight showing, I think the film did pretty well for its self.  The 2hr 30min (+/-) was undeniably Ledger’s best work, and Aaron Eckhart’s role was beyond what I thought he could handle.  Oh, that Christial Bale fellow is still a badass.

Deadline Hollywood:I’ve just been told by unofficial sources that Warner Bros’ The Dark Knight is playing to packed Sunday performances for over $40M and maybe as high as $43M. That would mean a 9th record for the latest Batman installment since Spider-Man 3’s Sunday take in 2007 was a record-setting $39.9M. It’s also now abundantly clear that the Warner Bros caped crusader will crush the old 3-day weekend non-holiday record set by Spider-Man 3 last year. Also, Dark Knight should break its 9th record by beating the all-time weekly tally. Meanwhile, in its first six days, DK will have grossed more than the entire run of director Chris Nolan’s first installment Batman Begins.

Apparently I’ve taken the official role on this site as The Dark Knight updater.  Our homies (i.e. people we steal teh internetz from) over at WWTDD have posted the first 6 minutes of The Dark Knight.  There was a video camera recording (see below) floating around the web, but that version was pretty damn shaky.

The actual clip?  Pretty fucking awesome.  I’m actually think that this performance might be better than Jack Nicholson’s in the original movie.  Click here to go to WWTDD to watch it on their stupid media player that doesn’t allow people to rip off of it, or, watch the bad ass video camera version below.

So what if Mary Kate Olsen and Heath Ledger were hooking up? I don’t really care and neither should you. The point is that Heath’s masseuse found him “cold to touch” and called Mary Kate 2 times before the police, knowing that she was at least a trusted friend who had the ability to send help. She knew the situation was delicate. She was probably thinking about the massive amount of cameras, the morbid public eye, and the apathy of police work when she dialed Mary Kate to frantically ask what to do. Yeah, it looks a little shady, but when you read his last interview in the New York Times, you’ll see there’s no foul play. Just a tragic accident with sleeping pills; a male Marilyn Monroe. May he rest in peace and his life be celebrated.

As often happens when he throws himself into a part, the actor is not sleeping much.

“Last week, I probably slept an average of two hours a night. I couldn’t stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going.”

One night, he said, he took an Ambien, which failed to work. He took a second one and fell into a stupor, only to wake up an hour later, his mind still racing.

Even as he spoke, Ledger was hard-pressed to keep still. He got up and poured more coffee. He stepped outside into the courtyard and smoked a cigarette. He shook his hair out from under its hood, put a rubber band around it, took out the rubber band, put on a hat, took off the hat, put the hood back up. He went outside for another cigarette.

Polite and charming, he nonetheless gave off the sense that the last thing he wanted to do was delve deep into himself for public consumption.

Mind you, I’m getting my info from Access Hollywood, the true bastion of journalistic integrity and newsworthiness, so feel free to take this with a grain of salt.

In a stunning revelation, Mary-Kate Olsen, the fur enthusiast and supposed actress had been TOTALLY HOOKING UP OMG!!1!! with Heath for months prior to his death, and was notified BEFORE the police that he was not breathing. DUN DUN DUUUUUN.

In other news, being a former child star is still beat. But portraying gay cowboys and overdosing is still totally awesome.

What a surprise. The highly-evolved (insert sarcasm here) folks at Westboro Baptist Church wish Heath Ledger a wonderful eternity IN HELL!

Sometimes I think we’re already there…

No details are available yet, but here’s an article from the New York Times:

The actor Heath Ledger was found dead this afternoon in an apartment building at 421 Broome Street in SoHo, according to the New York City police. Mr. Ledger was 28.

At 3:31 p.m., a masseuse arrived at Apartment 5A in the building for an appointment with Mr. Ledger, the police said. The masseuse was let in to the home by a housekeeper, who then knocked on the door of Mr. Ledger’s bedroom. When no one answered, the housekeeper and the masseuse opened the bedroom and found Mr. Ledger unconscious. They shook him, but he did not respond. They immediately called the authorities. The police said they did not suspect foul play and said they found pills near body.

Mr. Ledger, a native of Perth, Australia, won acclaim for his role as a co-star in “Brokeback Mountain”, a 2005 film. The film, based on a short story by Annie Proulx about two cowboys who fall in love, won critical acclaim. Reviewing the film in The New York Times, the critic Stephen Holden wrote, “Mr. Ledger magically and mysteriously disappears beneath the skin of his lean, sinewy character. It is a great screen performance, as good as the best of Marlon Brando and Sean Penn.”

Calls by The New York Times to Mara Buxbaum, a publicist for Mr. Ledger, and Steve Alexander, the actor’s agent, were not immediately returned this afternoon.

UPDATE: As could be ascertained by the “found pills” statement in the original NY Times story, most signs are pointing to suicide. with Ledger’s friend telling US Magazine that “we saw it coming”:

“Heath has gone though a rough road of trying to get sober,” the source tells Us.

“Things were very dark,” the source says. “His one joy was Matilda.” Matilda is his 2-year-old daughter with ex-wife Michelle Williams. They split in September.

“Everything else was misery for him,” adds the source. “Unfortunately he was too late in getting help.”