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.

Batman sequel “The Dark Knight” kept up its record-breaking pace this weekend, pushing its total receipts since opening to a stunning 313.8 million dollars, box office tracker Exhibitor Relations said.

Director Christopher Nolan’s follow-up to 2005’s “Batman Begins,” with Christian Bale in the lead and the late Heath Ledger as the villainous Joker, topped the previous second-weekend record of “Shrek 2″, with 75.2 million in ticket sales over the Friday-Sunday period, final figures showed.

That followed its record for a debut weekend, when it overtook previous mark-holder “Spider-Man 3″ with an unprecedented 158.4 million dollars in seats sold.

The film is helped by the buzz over Ledger’s performance, who died of an accidental drug overdose in New York in January, with many industry experts speculating that he may win a rare posthumous Oscar for the role.

Far back in second place was “Step Brothers,” a Will Farrell-starring comedy of two middle-aged men still living at home when their respective widowed parents meet and get married.

On its opening weekend “Step Brothers,” directed by Adam McKay, sold 30.1 million dollars in tickets, Exhibitor Relations said.

Third was the ABBA musical “Mamma Mia” with a take of 17.8 million in its second weekend, followed in fourth by “The X-Files: I Want to Believe,” which took in 10.2 million on its opening weekend.

In fifth place was “Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D,” which earned 9.7 million in its third week.

Rounding out the top 10 in the final figures for the weekend were the Will Smith action flick “Hancock,” earning 8.3 million to take its four-week total to 206.5 million; the acclaimed animation “Wall-E,” 6.4 million for a five week take of 195.3 million; “Hellboy II” (5.1 million); “Space Chimps” (4.5 million); and “Wanted” (2.7 million).

With “The Dark Knight’s” smashing run, Exhibitor Relations said that movie theater ticket sales so far this year hit 5.84 billion dollars, barely behind last year’s figure for the same period of 5.85 billion dollars.

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.

The new Batman movie, “The Dark Knight,” raked in $66.4 million (33.2 million pounds) in its opening day to set the single-day box office record, according to its distributor Warner Bros.The Friday tally bests the $59.8 million set by “Spider-Man 3″ at its opening last year.

The film will likely break the opening weekend record of $151.1 million set by the Spider-Man movie, said Dan Fellman, head of distribution at Warner Bros.

“I don’t see any reason why we are going to slow down,” he said.

Fellman attributed the success to the unique vision of director Christopher Nolan and the “outstanding” performance of the late Australian actor Heath Ledger in what turned out to be his last completed screen role, as Batman’s arch nemesis, the Joker.

“The Dark Knight,” which cost about $180 million to produce, also picked up a record $18.5 million in sales of tickets for preview screenings ahead of its official opening.

The five previous Batman movies released by Warner Bros, a unit of Time Warner Inc, had an average opening gross of $47 million.

Those films collectively have amassed over $1.6 billion in ticket sales worldwide since 1989, according to box office tracking service Media By Numbers.

The last Batman movie, 2005’s “Batman Begins,” grossed nearly $49 million its first weekend in North America and went on to collect about $372 million worldwide.

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.