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
Comment on “Weekend Box Office: Dark Knight Defeats $500 Million”
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No one was at the movies? Crazy because the one near my house was packed! I went and seen the 11pm show for The Dark Knight and there was at least 80-100 people there for just that showing (at $10 a ticket). Standing in line it looked like Tropic Thunder and Step Brothers was doing very well also.
If Warner Bros wanted it to beat Titanic they'd just have to leave it out there long enough. I've even heard they may do a re-expansion of the movie sometime in October/November since they moved the new Harry Potter movie. If they did that, which would be a very smart move IMO, it will come close to $600 million. I think it will top out at around $550 million if they don't do the re-expansion in a couple months. If they kept it out till around oscar time it would easily surpass $600 million, maybe over $650...but we'll never know, gotta get it out on DVD asap to make some more quick cash right
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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.
September 1st, 2008 at 16:18
No one was at the movies? Crazy because the one near my house was packed! I went and seen the 11pm show for The Dark Knight and there was at least 80-100 people there for just that showing (at $10 a ticket). Standing in line it looked like Tropic Thunder and Step Brothers was doing very well also.
If Warner Bros wanted it to beat Titanic they'd just have to leave it out there long enough. I've even heard they may do a re-expansion of the movie sometime in October/November since they moved the new Harry Potter movie. If they did that, which would be a very smart move IMO, it will come close to $600 million. I think it will top out at around $550 million if they don't do the re-expansion in a couple months. If they kept it out till around oscar time it would easily surpass $600 million, maybe over $650...but we'll never know, gotta get it out on DVD asap to make some more quick cash right