Superheroes now claim the top two spots on the 2012 worldwide box-office chart.
Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures' The Dark Knight Rises passed Ice Age: Continental Drift on Sunday to become the No. 2 release of the year with a global gross of $732 million. Ice Age 4 has grossed nearly $716 million to date.
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Disney and Marvel's The Avengers ranks No. 1 with $1.46 billion -- the third-best showing of all time.
The big question now is whether Dark Knight Rises -- the final film in Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale's Batman trilogy, can match the $1 billion in grosses earned by The Dark Knight in 2008.
Domestically, Dark Knight Rises continues to trail Dark Knight at the same time during the latter's run -- the difference is currently $38 million -- but it did decline less in its third weekend than its predecessor did.
Dark Knight Rises is making up for the difference overseas, where it is pacing more than 30 percent ahead of Dark Knight, earning $378.1 million to date.
To date, Dark Knight Rises has earned $353.9 million in North America, the third-biggest grosser of 2012 behind Avengers and Lionsgate's The Hunger Games. Box-office observers believe the film has left some amount of money on the table because of the July 20 theater shooting during a midnight screening of the movie in Aurora, Colo.