It may be a holiday weekend, but that doesn’t mean anyone was at the movie theater. Instead, Americans stayed in their backyards wielding lighter fluid and burning various types of meat. Four new movies went wide this past weekend, and judging from the reviews out there, staying home may have been the best possible decision.

With such a putrid crop of new releases, Tropic Thunder was able to repeat yet again in the box office’s number one spot. That’s three weeks in a row at number one for Ben Stiller’s controversial comedy. This week, it did it with a take of only $11.5 million, giving the film a total take so far of $83.3 million. With a budget of $92 million, Tropic Thunder should have no problem turning a profit, especially once International box office is taken into consideration.

The closest runner-up was the critically savaged Babylon A.D.. Even for a Vin Diesel movie this thing is getting absolutely terrible reviews, and it’s not making much money either. It opened in second place with only $9.7 million. The only other new opener to register in the top 5 was the Don Cheadle movie Traitor, which opened on Wednesday and earned $7.9 million for the weekend. Meanwhile the latest parody abortion Disaster Movie bombed in the number 7 spot while the Superbad knockoff comedy College couldn’t even make it into the top 10. College landed in fifteenth place, with an absolutely dismal $2.1 million take.

Small release indie movies seem however, to be benefiting from the drought of good newcomers. Woody Allen’s new movie, Vicky Christina Barcelona actually climbed the chart this week, despite being out three weeks. In only 692 theaters, Vicky Christina earned $3.3 million and landed in the number 10 spot.

Meanwhile, with little else worth seeing in the theater, audiences continue to flock to The Dark Knight. Batman’s big movie officially passed the $500 million mark this weekend. It’s been out for seven weeks and it’s still sitting at number 3. It’s also still standing still as the second highest grossing movie of all time. With little else worth watching on the horizon, expect to see TDK hanging around in the top 10 for many more weeks to come, but it’s still not going to beat Titanic, the top grossing movie of all time with an untouchable $600 million take.

August 29 - 31, 2008 LW = Last Week WR = Weeks Released THTRS = Number of Screens * Denotes new release. Click on title to read CB Review

1. Tropic Thunder $11,500,000 - Total: $83,834,000 LW: 1 WR: 3 THTRS: 3473

2. Babylon A.D. * $9,700,000 - Total: $9,700,000 LW: N WR: 1 THTRS: 3390

3. The Dark Knight $8,750,000 - Total: $502,421,000 LW: 4 WR: 7 THTRS: 2750

4. The House Bunny $8,300,000 - Total: $27,850,000 LW: 2 WR: 2 THTRS: 2714

5. Traitor * $7,900,000 - Total: $9,401,000 LW: N WR: 1 THTRS: 2054

6. Death Race $6,228,000 - Total: $23,078,000 LW: 3 WR: 2 THTRS: 2537

7. Disaster Movie * $6,170,000 - Total: $6,170,000 LW: N WR: 1 THTRS: 2664

8. Mamma Mia! $4,418,000 - Total: $131,509,000 LW: 8 WR: 7 THTRS: 1968

9. Pineapple Express $3,390,000 - Total: $79,773,000 LW: 6 WR: 4 THTRS: 2047

10. Vicky Christina Barcelona $3,003,000 - Total: $12,787,000 LW: 11 WR: 3 THTRS: 2422