Box Office: TROPIC THUNDER finally shoots down Batman
But THE DARK KNIGHT becomes the second biggest film of all time.
Sorry I haven't updated the box office reports for a few weeks, it's just been a bit boring telling everyone how much money Warner Bros have made from The Dark Knight. But if you are keeping count, the movie is now up to $471.5 million domestically, which makes it the second biggest film of all time in the U.S, even with inflation taken into account as Star Wars (which includes it's many re-releases since 1977) has grossed only $461 million. It's been a record breaking month for Batman and soon attention will turn to a sequel at WB, the most important thing seemingly is to get Christopher Nolan signed up and maybe the best way to do it is to offer him free reign and free budget on whatever personal movie he has an itching to direct next before he comes back to the franchise. So August 18th 2008 marks a new number one and it's Ben Stiller's writing/acting and directing project Tropic Thunder which amassed $26 million over the weekend (plus a substantial $11 million from earlier mid-week showings) which ironically has now made more money than the whole of Stiller's last movie The Heartbreak Kid made on it's entire theatrical run.
Tropic Thunder has earned over 1/3rd of it's $92 million budget and should have the legs to make a profit. Stiller has taken a niche genre usually only marketable to an older male generation and has flooded it with popular actors and stars, and should reep the profits. Coming in at a very disappointing third place was the latest and heavily marketed Star Wars movie, the animated Clone Wars. Only grossing $15.5 million, fans certainly weren't impressive with it's overtly kid appeal and the fact it isn't really a film but three episodes of a t.v. show. Elsewhere, the other new release of the weekend, the horror movie Mirrors starring Kiefer Sutherland was never going to be able to compete against the blockbusters it was up against and only managed $11.1 million and fourth place. 1 Tropic Thunder (2008) $25.8M $36.8M 2 The Dark Knight (2008) $16.4M $471M 3 Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) $14.6M $14.6M 4 Mirrors (2008) $11.2M $11.2M 5 Pineapple Express (2008) $9.81M $62.7M 6 The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008) $8.21M $86.2M 7 Mamma Mia! (2008) $6.1M $116M 8 The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 (2008) $5.79M $32M 9 Step Brothers (2008) $4.81M $90.7M 10 Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) $3.76M $3.76M And despite the draw of a lesbian and love triangle between Javier Bardem, Scarlett Johansson and Penelope Cruz - Woody Allen's latest flick made about as much money as usual with a $3.76 million taking but I know it wasn't played on the widest of releases source - coming soon