Weekend Box Office: 'Dark Knight' Barrels Toward $400 Million
The weekend estimates have The Dark Knight edging out The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor for the #1 spot, with $43.8 million to The Mummy's $42.5. The ranking may well change by the time the actual figures come out Monday afternoon, but the important fact will remain: The Dark Knight has hauled in $395 million after merely 3 weekends of release. Its first two weekend drops -- 53% and 42% -- may not seem sensational, but for a film that opened to $158 million, those numbers aren't half bad. The movie is second on the list of the top third weekends in history, behind Spider-Man, but it's already made just about as much as that film did in its entire run.Tomb of the Dragon Emperor opened on more screens than any of its franchise predecessors, but had the weakest opening weekend (unless you count the Scorpion King spin-off), running about one million behind the 1999 original. (The Mummy Returns opened to $68 million back in 2001.) Next weekend doesn't offer much direct competition -- except The Dark Knight, natch -- so maybe it can make up some ground, though I don't reckon word-of-mouth will be its friend.
Things did not go well for Swing Vote, which had to make do with $6.3 million and sixth place. I'd say this means viewers are wary of politics right now (which wouldn't bode well for W), but I don't think too many people knew that Swing Vote opened. You have to market summer counter-programming.
My heart breaks as I peruse the back end of the top 10, where The X-Files: I Want to Believe -- for my money, the most undervalued movie of the summer -- falls to ninth with a painful 66% drop. What can I say? I get why it didn't work out. But I'm not happy about it.
The full estimates after the jump.
1 - The Dark Knight (Warner Bros.) - $43.8 ($10,267) - $394.89
2 - The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (Universal) - $42.45 ($11,289) - $42.45
3 - Step Brothers (Columbia) - $16.30 ($5,268) - $62.97
4 - Mamma Mia! (Universal) - $13.12 ($4,285) - $87.98
5 - Journey to the Center of the Earth (New Line) - $11.91 ($4,208) - $43.07
6 - Swing Vote (Touchstone) - $6.30 ($2,846) - $6.30
7 - Hancock (Columbia) - $5.20 ($1,869) - $216.00
8 - Wall-E (Disney) - $4.75 ($1,857) - $204.22
9 - The X-Files: I Want to Believe (Fox) - $3.43 ($1,075) - $17.06
10 - Space Chimps (Fox) - $2.84 ($1,330) - $22.09
Numbers from Box Office Mojo.
Pineapple Express and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 both open on Wednesday. Sisterhood might hit a demographic sweet spot and Pineapple has been brilliantly marketed, so it'll be an interesting weekend.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
8-04-2008 @ 10:53AM
Luke said...
Gotta agree with you there on the "X-Files". Saw it this weekend and, despite it's obvious flaws, still really liked it. I don't fault the critics for saying what they did, cause for an "X-Files" the story was weaker than we've come to expect, but I don't think it was a bad movie at all. It had an almost indie-flare to it which I think fit it well.
The thing that pisses me off is WHY WHY WHY would Fox choose to put it one week after "The Dark Knight" premieres? I mean, come on? I know not everybody assumed it would do as good as it did, but it's still a freaking superhero movie sequel!! It was bound to kick it's everloving butt. Not that I think "X-Files" would have done considerably better had it not been a week after "The Dark Knight" but I do think it wouldn't have been as pummeled to the ground as it was.
So disappointing. I didn't realize how much I missed Mulder and Scully until this weekend and now I'm pretty pissed that, thanks to the wonderful power of money, I'm probably not going to get to see them for a good long while again.
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8-04-2008 @ 11:32PM
Ray said...
Ditto for Hellboy 2. Why would you open a superhero movie one week before "The Dark Knight"? It got hammered in its second week, dropping from $36 million to $10. Ouch. Bad planning.
8-04-2008 @ 11:53AM
malren said...
I thought it was pretty bad. Chris Carter has lost his ability to create anything with any real snap or emotion or interest. It was spectacularly boring. And the plot made zero sense, really.
http://tinyurl.com/xfiles-iwtb
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8-04-2008 @ 12:18PM
Mr.R said...
The worst thing is having waited so many years to come up with a sequel and not making it about UFOs. I loved X-files but already you can tell that new generations are not as much into it as mine was. Too bad, they deserved a better closing.
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8-04-2008 @ 4:13PM
James said...
I have to agree -- the X Files Movie is one of the best movies of the summer. Even my friend who is a non-x files fan thought it was GREAT. I hope that more people see it but they didn't do enough to advertise it and a horrible choice of an opening weekend -- who would have figured that the bat would be that strong.
Go see X-Files if you haven't, you will be surprised at how good it is.
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8-04-2008 @ 4:57PM
Riley Freeman said...
the moment u saw dark knight coming everyone should have pushed back their movies at least 2 months. id take a chance with bond over the dark knight. these numbers for batman are not surprising and xfiles is the result of the dark knight being way too good and way too popular
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8-04-2008 @ 8:20PM
Dan said...
Amen to what you said about The X-Files!
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8-05-2008 @ 12:30AM
joits said...
haven't seen the x-files yet, i wanted to... until i heard that its story had NOTHING to do with the xfiles finale. i mean, wtf? i had just gone through a x-files marathon to catch up and finish the series to be ready for the movie... the series ends without fully resolving the overall story... so years later we get another movie and what do they do? totally ignore the ending of the tv show and focus on some totally separate story. that just pissed me off personally... i will wait for it on dvd instead.
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