The new Batman movie, "The Dark Knight," starring late actor Heath Ledger as The Joker, premiered last night in New York City at the AMC Loews Lincoln Square theater. Many theaters have already sold out tickets for the July 18th opening.

Just as they previously announced, Heath Ledger's family flew in from Australia to attend the event while the actor's co-stars wasted no time remembering their friend and colleague who tragically died in January of an accidental drug overdose.

"He was great," Christian Bale, who reprised his role as Batman, said. "He's a phenomenal talent. He was great company. I miss him dearly."

Others attending the premiere were Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Aaron Eckhart and Maggie Gyllenhaal.

"He gives a master performance," Eckhart, who plays district attorney Harvey Dent (a.k.a. Two-Face), told Usmagazine.com.
"I am honored and proud to be in this film with him."

"He’s remarkable, he’s inspiring," Gyllenhaal, who plays attorney Rachel Dawes, added.

Even though he and his wife chose not to walk the red carpet, Ledger's father, Kim, was spotted giving a thumbs-up sign while telling reporters it felt "very good" to attend the event as he exited the Manhattan theater Monday night.

Set to break every box office record, one of the most talked about movies of the year, "The Dark Knight" has also received positive reviews from the critics, partly due to Heath Ledger's performance, which is already generating Oscar buzz.

"An ambitious, full-bodied crime epic of gratifying scope and moral complexity, this is seriously brainy pop entertainment that satisfies every expectation raised by its hit predecessor and then some," Variety's Justin Chang noted in his review.

Even the most skeptical of the critics admitted that Ledger delivered an unexpectedly good performance.

"Ledger's performance is a beauty. His Joker has a slow cadence of speech, as if weighing words for maximum mischief and contempt. He moves languidly as if to savour his dark deeds, his head and body jerking at times from an overload of brain impulses," KirK Honeycutt from Hollywood Reporter wrote.

Crucial to the film's success is director Christopher Nolan's decision to make the flick a laugh-free zone, with basically no light moments except the Joker's witty remarks who fills his every scene with tension.

After successfully resurrecting the Batman franchise with "Batman Begins," which raked in $372 million at global box offices, Christopher Nolan admitted to being "nervous" when he set about making another Batman movie because he knew "The Dark Knight" needed to take audiences to places they hadn't been in the first movie.

"There are very, very few good sequels, I think," he was quoted by Reuters as saying. "The two I always had in mind, that we were aspiring to be, were "The Godfather II" and "The Empire Strikes Back," the 1980 follow-up to the first, smash hit "Star Wars" movie.

"Other than those, (good sequels) are pretty thin on the ground," he added.