Tropic Thunder Takes First; The Dark Knight Takes Out Star Wars at the Box Office

Posted by John Cairns (jcairns@filmschoolrejects.com) on August 17, 2008

Welcome to another Reject Report Box Office Update and another historic weekend at the theaters. Although, oddly enough, it wasn’t Tropic Thunder that made history, even though it ended up in first place with a haul of $26 million. Instead, the Caped Crusader set another milestone.

As predicted by many, this was the weekend that The Dark Knight toppled Star Wars to achieve the second-highest domestic gross of all time, behind Titanic. It set the mark on Saturday and now has a haul of $471,493,000. That is only $29 million short of the landmark $500 million total that has only been achieved once before at theaters, by Titanic. The $500 mil mark is likely to be set within a couple of weeks.

Also, The Dark Knight finished the weekend in second place at $16,790,000, ending a run of four weekends in a row as the top-grossing movie in our portion of the world. So at least Titanic’s run of 15 consecutive first-place finishes at the weekend box office is safe.

In more history-making at the theaters: when was the last time a movie released under the Star Wars banner a flop in wide release? A long time ago … in a galaxy far, far away.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars finished in third place at $15,505,000 in its wide release. Now, that is sad, ladies and gentlemen. Granted, this was an animated picture released by Warner Brothers, and it wasn’t good anyway and the fanboys hated it, but this is a historic occasion to be sure. The buck stops here for Star Wars. It’s more proof that NO ONE is guaranteed a hit: you have to earn your money every time.

(I guess the Indiana Jones animated feature is out the window, then: same for the animated E.T. and the animated Star Trek. Wait a minute — they did an animated Star Trek, on Saturday mornings. Oh, never mind.)

As for Tropic Thunder, it was an impressive win this weekend at theaters, though hardly a blockbuster. There’s a real chance it could repeat in first place next weekend, too, because summer movie season is RAPIDLY coming to an end. Me, I’m not prepared to call it over until The House Bunny hops into theaters next week. (Though some might be prepared to say it’s over after this weekend. In any event, fall is coming fast.)

I had thought Vicky Christina Barcelona would do better, but I looked through the old box office grosses for Woody Allen movies and realized Woody Allen hasn’t made a blockbuster to save his life. His flicks play in art-houses in big cities and across the pond! But folks in middle America just won’t fork it over for Woody Allen. So that flick only comes in at $3.7 million.

Mirrors, was the only other new flick to finish in the Top Ten, coming in at $11 mil.

The damages:

That’s it for now! See you later this week for more at the Reject Report as summer officially winds down around here, finally.

Read more articles by John Cairns