as well as the second-highest-grossing non-opening Wednesday ($18.4million), behind Transformers ($29.1million). It retained the number-one position in its second weekend with a total gross of $75.2million, ahead of the debuting Step Brothers ($31million), giving it the highest-grossing second weekend. It retained the number-one position in its third ($42.7million) and fourth ($26.1million) weekends, before falling to second place in its fifth, with a gross of $16.4million, behind the debuting Tropic Thunder ($25.8million). The Dark Knight remained in the top-ten highest-grossing films for ten weeks, and became the film to surpass $400million soonest (18 days) and $500million (45 days). The film was playing in fewer than 100 theaters when it received a 300-theater relaunch in late January 2009 to raise its profile during nominations for the 81st Academy Awards. This raised its total box office to $533.3million before it left theaters on March 5 after 33 weeks, making it the highest-grossing comic-book, superhero, and Batman film; the highest-grossing film of 2008; and the second-highest-grossing film ever (unadjusted for inflation), behind the 1997 romantic drama Titanic ($600.8million). The Dark Knight was released in Australia and Taiwan on Wednesday, July 16, 2008, and opened in twenty markets by the weekend. It earned about $40million combined, making it second to Hancock ($44.8million), which was playing in nearly four times as many countries. The Dark Knight was available in sixty-two countries by the end of August, although Warner Bros. decided not to release it in China, blaming "a number of pre-release conditions... as well as cultural sensitivities to some elements of the film". The Dark Knight earned about $469.7million outside the U.S. and Canada, its highest grosses coming from the United Kingdom ($89.1million), Australia ($39.9million), Germany ($29.7million), France ($27.5million), Mexico ($25million), South Korea ($24.7million), and Brazil ($20.2million). This made it the second-highest-grossing film of the year behind Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The film had grossed $997 million worldwide by January 2009. Its reissue in the run-up to the Oscars enabled the film to exceed $1billion in February, and it ultimately earned $1.003billion. It was the first superhero film to gross over $1billion, the highest-grossing film of 2008 worldwide, the fourth film to earn more than $1billion, and the fourth-highest-grossing film of its time behind Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest ($1.066billion), The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King ($1.119billion), and Titanic ($1.842billion). Rereleases have further raised its