The Ben Stiller comedy "Tropic Thunder" was the most-watched movie across North American over the long US Labour Day weekend, but it was "The Dark Knight" that made news by breaking the USD 500-million mark, industry figures showed.Stiller's movie-within-a-movie, about a group of actors shooting a war film in the middle of a real-life conflict zone, scooped USD 14.3 million from Friday to Monday in the United States and Canada, totalling USD 86.6 million since its opening, according to preliminary figures by box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations.But the week's highlight was reigning summer blockbuster "The Dark Knight," which earned a third place take of 11.02 million, pushing its total domestic haul to 504.7 million. The the Batman sequel is only the second film in history after�James Cameron's "Titanic", to top the half-billion-dollar mark Debuting at second place was Babylon AD, a sci-fi action thriller starring Vin Diesel and Michelle Yeoh which earned USD 12 million.Slipping two places to fourth with 10.5 million was the comedy "The House Bunny," about an ousted Playboy bunny who becomes the house mother at a dysfunctional college sorority.��� Fifth with USD 10 million was another debut, "Traitor," a war-on-terror epic featuring Don Cheadle as a former US Special Ops officer and potential international conspirator. "Death Race," a futuristic action-adventure flick starring Jason Statham as an ex-convict forced to compete against prison inmates in a brutal, freedom-or-death car race, raked in USD 8.2 million for sixth place.���� Debuting at seventh with 7 million was the natural disaster spoof "Disaster Movie," about a band of bunglers struggling to survive as the world comes to an end. The ill-timed film opened as the US Gulf Coast faces the imminent wrath of Hurricane Gustav.(Agencies) ... read more »