Dark Knight, the Batman movie starring Heath Ledger, did boffo box office: $158.3 million, according to Defamer. But this blockbuster will not just benefit Warner Brothers and DC Comics, which share parent Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX) with BloggingStocks. There are at least six companies that will benefit from Dark Knight's success. According to Seeking Alpha, these companies include:

• Time Warner -- through its Warner Brothers and DC Comics subsidiaries are profiting most directly.
• Comcast Corporation (NYSE: CMCSA) partnered with Warner Bros. to offer "behind-the-scenes footage, trailers, and mini movies on demand"
• Verizon Communications, Inc. (NYSE: VZ) and Nokia Corporation (NYSE: NOK) collaborated in creating the Nokia6205 The Dark Knight Edition. Seeking Alpha reports that "This batphone targets superfans, with bat wallpaper, voice tones, screensavers, and the film's trailer pre-loaded."

According to Variety Magazine (subscription), Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) has purchased the rights to the 15 Oz (the fantasy land, not the prison) stories of L. Frank Baum from Ted Turner. In partnership with Village Roadshow Pictures, the company's Warner Bros. division plans to bring the world back to the big screen. Among those involved in the project are Todd McFarlane of "Spawn" and screenwriter Josh Olson.

The movie industry has found a great deal of success with franchises such as Batman and Spiderman, as well as Lord of the Rings, so reaching into the past for another iconic work seems like a shrewd move.

McFarlane and Olson are looking to bring the cinematic version closer to the tone of the original series, which were darker than the Judy Garland classic. Variety quotes Olson as saying "I want this to be 'Harry Potter' dark, not 'Seven' dark.

Not as dark, I hope, as the vision behind McFarlane's 2003 McFarlane Toys Twisted Land of Oz Action Figures, a disturbing reimagining of the world featuring Dorothy in bondage and other gruesome scenes and characters.

Nonetheless, I'm counting the days, my pretty, until flying monkeys return to the screen.

Thanks to SliceofSciFi for the lead.

Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX) will report earnings tomorrow morning. Analysts expect earnings of 20 cents a share, a 5% increase over a year ago, on sales of 11.5 billion (5% higher than a year ago), according to CNN/Money. Bloomberg quotes several analysts who say the strong performance is driven by cable.

According to Factset, most analysts have not changed the 2007 forecasts while the stock has gone up. So why is the stock moving North?

Over the weekend, the "Breaking Views" section of the Wall Street Journal recited the laundry list of reasons that Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:TWX) stock has moved to over $20 for the first time in four years. Investors appear to be waiting for a spin-off of the cable unit, and some improvement at AOL, or, perhaps, even its sale.

It would also appear that investors hope Time Warner will have something of a "November surprise" when earnings are released tomorrow.The surprise would have to be of a significant enough magnitude to move the shares up through the end of the year.

What are the possibilities? Time Warner management might announce that it is looking at a major acquisition in cable, perhaps Cablevision, but the dilution or debt that such a move might add could send the shares down.

Or perhaps the company could announce it is shedding another division. Time Warner's two troubled divisions are the studio operations, anchored by Warner Bros, and Time, Inc., the company's flagship magazine operation. Wall Street is enamored of neither. Both have been drags on earnings.

I think if Time Warner really wants to earn another round of applause from Wall Street, it would have to tell investors that the bankers have arrived and that it will part company with one of these two divisions.

Get up early November 1. You never know what you might hear.

Douglas McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.

Not long ago, media empires sued file sharers. Now, they strike partnerships.

The latest is from Time Warner's Warner Bros. The deal calls for distribution of Warner Bros.' rich content library of TV shows and movies on Guba.com.

OK, in this deal, "sharing" means selling the movie downloads. Interestingly enough, like other video sites, Guba.com shared copyrighted content for free.  Well, it is changing its ways.

Actually, Warner Bros. has been quite visionary.  The company recently struck a similar deal with another file sharer, BitTorrent.

Warner Bros. also realizes that – if it wants to find its customers – it must move to the Web.  Why not go to places where huge numbers of users gather? Yes, it's not brain surgery.  But, in the entertainment business, often the first inclination is to sue, not partner.

Other news from the Milken Conference: AOL Chairman and Chief Exec Jonathan Miller let the cat out of the bag that AOL is considering an online model that makes content -- such as television reruns from Time Warner sister company Warner Bros. -- available for an extended period to let the audience accumulate.

While you may think of Warner Bros. as that benign force that brought us ER, Friends, and The O.C., don't forget that we also owe Warner Bros. for such made-for-TV movies as Dukes of Hazzard: Reunion!  and Terror in the Mall, as well as the sitcom Full House.

As for prospects of looking deep into my computer monitor and seeing Bob Saget reprise his Full House role as cherubic widower Danny Tanner -- something I thought I'd left, along with my "Members Only" jackets and Thriller cassette, safely in the 1980's -- well, Minesweeper is looking better and better...

Warner Bros., the television-and-movies subsidiary of Time Warner, is stepping up efforts to cash in on the big-money, low-budget industry of Reality -- reality television, that is. The company intends to launch a TV production unit, called Warner Horizon Television, to produce even lower budget reality television programs.

And how does Warner Horizon Television plan to lower the cost of the already pathetically cheap reality television shows?

Well, according to Peter Roth, President of Warner Bros. Television, the studio will limit taping days, shooting locations and "talent" pay. This new production model will reduce costs to about $500,000 less per episode than what a "traditional" (read: watchable) TV show costs per episode.

If you're interested, Warner Horizon, I have a couple of ideas for some very low-budget reality shows: