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.