Batman outwitted a pair of stoners to lead the North American box office for a fourth weekend on Sunday, becoming the third-biggest movie of all time.

“The Dark Knight” sold about $26.0 million worth of tickets during the three days beginning Friday, taking its haul to $441.5 million after 24 days, said Warner Bros. Pictures.

The superhero sequel now ranks at No. 3 on the all-time list, behind “Titanic” with $601 million and “Star Wars” with $461 million.

But adjusted for inflation, the Caped Crusader ranks more modestly at No. 49, according to tracking firm Box Office Mojo. The 1939 epic “Gone With the Wind” wins by that measure with $1.4 billion in today’s dollars.

Warner Bros., a unit of Time Warner Inc, said it expects “Dark Knight” to surpass “Star Wars” next weekend and end up with about $520 million.

The last movie to enjoy an unbroken four-week reign at No. 1 was “The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King” in 2003-2004, according to Box Office Mojo.

Internationally, “The Dark Knight” has earned $263.1 million, with Britain contributing $69.3 million and Australia $35.6 million.

The drug-fueled caper “Pineapple Express,” named for a strong brand of marijuana, opened at No. 2 in North America with $22.4 million. It would have been No. 1 had Columbia Pictures not opted to open the picture two days earlier than usual on Wednesday to maximize sales during the school holidays. The film’s five-day total stands at $40.5 million.

Watch Batman Joker The Dark Knight Click Here

Let’s forget for just a moment about all of the hallelujah reviews surrounding Heath Ledger’s performance in “The Dark Knight.” Can Heath Ledger win an Oscar just because he’s holding an I.O.U.?

Many stars win an Academy Award because they’re overdue. No one — not even Paul Newman — thinks that Newman gave the best performance of his career in the movie that earned him academy gold: “The Color of Money.” But he won merely because voters felt guilty that they stiffed him over seven previous nominations. Same thing for Al Pacino. What a pity that voters finally caved in and gave him an Oscar for his cornball attempt to pretend he’s blind in “Scent of a Woman.”

Considering that Heath Ledger didn’t finish shooting his role in “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus,” “The Dark Knight” is probably the last chance Oscar voters will get to catch up with Heath Ledger, who they stiffed in 2005. The New York Film Critics Circle got it right when it gave its best-actor laurels to Heath Ledger for “Brokeback Mountain.” Everybody else heaped overblown kudos that year upon Philip Seymour Hoffman for a lousy, historically dishonest portrayal of Truman Capote. As everyone knows, Capote was a flamboyant firecracker, not the quiet, mousy doormat Hoffman gave us while trying too hard to portray a cliché, angst-haunted artiste. But “Capote” had snooty, art-house pretense, so it swept the awards scene. Lucky for Hoffman, that movie came out a few months before the much-better, more accurate “Infamous,” which spotlighted the same period in the novelist’s life with a luminous, perfect-pitch performance by Toby Jones that reminds us how awful Hoffman was.

But I digress. Back to Heath Ledger, who clearly should’ve beaten Hoffman. He never got recognized at all for his many other socko roles in “Candy,” “I’m Not There,” “The Patriot,” “Ned Kelly,” “Two Hands,” “Cassanova.”

Now Heath Ledger really deserves it, if we believe the New York Times’ review of his Joker in “The Dark Knight”: ” He’s just a clown in black velvet, but he’s also some kind of masterpiece.”

“This is a career-making performance if ever there was one,” says USA Today about Heath Ledger in “The Dark Knight.” “Too bad it was a career-ending one as well.”

“Not since Hannibal Lecter has a villain been so terrifying, so engaging and so memorable,” says E! Online. If that’s an apt analogy, then it’s good kudos news for Heath Ledger considering Anthony Hopkins won best actor.

Heath Ledger’s frenzied reinvention of the Joker had fans and colleagues buzzing. His dreadful clown face was seen online by millions, and stood as the goosebump-raising image upon which nearly all early marketing of “The Dark Knight” hinged.

All this, while Ledger was still alive.

Now the Batman archfiend stands as Ledger’s next-to-last performance. And while it’s not the first, “The Dark Knight” has already emerged as arguably the biggest movie featuring a posthumous role in Hollywood history.

Major stars including James Dean, Clark Gable, Carole Lombard, Spencer Tracy and Will Rogers had high-profile films released after they died. The deaths of others — notably Bruce Lee and his son Brandon — created an eerie allure that heightened interest in their final films.

Yet none had the magnitude of a comic-book franchise with an illustrious 70-year history, and movies in those eras did not arrive with the fanfare of today. Certainly none had the advance word of a delirious, demented turn by an actor completely reimagining of one of Hollywood’s greatest villains.

Federal drug enforcement agents are investigating at least two MDs who prescribed drugs to Heath Ledger.

Immediately following the actor’s death, DEA reportedly subpoenaed several documents from the NYPD and the Medical Examiner to try to determine exactly where Ledger got his cocktail of prescriptions that eventually caused his death. The agents are looking into whether these drugs were properly prescribed by physicians.