Did Heath Ledger's death make The Dark Knight more financially successful?

I going to go ahead and assume it did, that his death created so much attention that it probably made the movie make like $200 million more than it would have. and so my theory is that the studio said "hey heath, if we fake your death, we'll pay you $50 million". plausible? these are big dollars at stake! Hollywood will do anything if it means they'll make a bunch more money. and heath said he didn't like fame, didn't want his daughter in the limelight, etc. im not saying he definitely did but i think it is possible that he's off somewhere doing god knows what. in all likelihood he really did die but it just seems very convenient considering how huge the dark knight was. it was gonna be big but his death made it huge i think.