With The Dark Knight entering its third weekend of release and the $145M summer spectacle known as The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor building on a hugely successful franchise, the predictions had The Dark Knight finishing second for the weekend. But that was before the Caped Crusader showed us he can’t be counted out as The Dark Knight overtook the third Mummy film and retained the number one spot on the charts for the third week in a row. Meanwhile the Kevin Costner starrer, Swing Vote, suffered a dismal debut.
Early weekend predictions had The Dark Knight finishing second, but a higher gross on Saturday and bad word of mouth for The Mummy helped bolster Batman to another strong weekend finish. Dropping just 42% in its third frame, The Dark Knight grossed an estimated $42.6M to lift its cume to a heart-stopping $393.8M in only 17 days and could now looks to cross the $400M mark on Monday with $500 a near certainty. If the film holds up similar to other big July movies in years past, the Batman flick should see a total that tops out around $520M. The film now sits at number eight on the list of all time domestic blockbusters, having passed the $380.3M of 2005’s Star Wars Episode III this weekend.
Internationally, The Dark Knight has collected $203.5M for a worldwide cume of $597M…and it hasn’t even opened in many markets around the world including Korea, Japan, Spain, France, Russia, and Germany.
Coming in a close second was The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor which grossed an estimated $40.5M. The film averaged a solid though not great $10,760 per site, but with end up with the worst opening of all three Mummy films (The Mummy opened with $43.4M in 1999 and The Mummy Returns opened with $68.1M in 2001). Overseas, the film grossed $59.5M from 28 territories putting the global cume at a very strong $100M (and good enough to beat The Dark Knight’s global weekend gross of $81M).
Step Brothers brought in $16.5M, down 47% from last weekend, which was good enough for third place. After only two weekends the Will Ferrell comedy has brought in $63.2M and looks to be headed for a final total of $100-110M.
Mamma Mia! held strong in fourth place slipping just 29% to $12.6M and pushing the cume to $87.5M. The musical is proving to be a real crowdpleaser and is running ahead of last summer’s Hairspray and 2006’s Streep starrer The Devil Wears Prada which after their third weekends had grossed $78.9M and $83.5M, respectively.
Journey to the Center of the Earth, which came in fifth, is also showing some fantastic legs. The New Line film fell just 31% and brought in $6.7M for the weekend bringing the cume to $72.9M and putting the $100M mark within range.
Opening in sixth place, the Kevin Costner starrer, Swing Vote, was dead on arrival. The film, in which Costner personally invested as much as $20M of his own money, grossed just $6.2M from 2,213 venues for a lousy $2,815 per site average. They’ll have to look to recoup their money in DVD sales on this one.
Rounding out the top ten:
- 7. Hancock - $5.1M - down 39% - $215.9M cume
- 8. Wall-E - $4.6M - down 28% - $204.1M cume
- 9. The X-Files: I Want to Believe - $3.4M - down 66% - $17M cume
- 10. Space Chimps - $2.7M - down 40% - $22M
The top ten films this weekend grossed $140.9M which is down 11% from last year when The Bourne Ultimatum opened at number one with $69.3M. However, it is up 21% from 2006 when Talladega Nights took the top spot with $47M.
Weekend Box Office (August 1 - 3, 2008)
Next week the Judd Apatow joke machine will try to take down The Dark Knight with a couple of smokers on the Pineapple Express while a gaggle of girls will try to find that audience who’s been showing up for Mamma Mia! and get them to check out The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2.
Is it just me or should Wall-E of been bigger than Wall-E - $4.6M - down 28% - $204.1M cume?
wheres the link you guys posted originally about guessing this summers $ totals and where they would rank… who was closest?
Being a Mummy fan from the first two, I was extremely disappointed with this one. I knew I would be but not as much as I thought.
I can't understand why they made it. The dialogue just wasn't that great. There are usually a couple cheesy lines in movies but this one was over the top. It was a bit distracting and forced. I wasn't feeling the chemistry between Maria Bello and Brendan Fraser. She did a great accent though, I'll give her that. She even sounded like Rachel on many parts. But unfortunately, I feel that's all she really did great. It was like she was so fixated on talking the part correctly, that the acting part went out the window. The only time she seemed comfortable was when she was in on the action and not saying anything.
The actor who played the son wasn't bad. He was great with Isabella (Lin). He was pretty good when he wasn't in scenes with Brendan or Maria. I definitely wasn't feeling the mother son vibe from the two. Felt like it was forced.
It didn't really feel like a Mummy movie really. I was disappointed going in and couldn't help but judge it based on the last two. If they couldn't get Rachel Weisz back, they shouldn't have had Evelyn's character in it. And instead of having a 27 year actor play an older Alex, they should have brought back Freddie Boath. Some consistency would have been great. All they would have to do is retool the script to include a teen Alex, rather than a college drop out.
It was entertaining but I couldn't over look the many issues that personally bothered me. Looks like there may not be a 4th after all, and I guess that's a good thing. I thought it was too much and too different from the originals. Now we know why Rachel didn't want to do it… The whole movie was forced. They had 7 years to come up with this and it felt rushed. Just eh.
Let me come right out and say it… I hate Brendan Fraser! I know a lot of people like him… but he does absolutely NOTHING for me.
Question of the Day: Who is it that you dislike that everyone else seems to love?
I don't like him either.
The only thing I liked Brendan in was The Mummy movies and George of the Jungle. Other than that, don't really care about him. Journey to the Center of the Earth looks good though.
I don't mind him. People on my list. Angelina Jolie, John Mayer, Julia Roberts, Mongomery Cliff .
Oprah…
Who is Montgomery Cliff?
Uma…
Sounds like Tomb of the Dragon Emperor met everyone's expectations; fun overall, but Brendan Frasier tries too hard to act, so he has an unnatural feel on screen
Got my song lyrics all confused, he was an english actor in the 40's and 50's.
I liked him in Encino Man and maybe something else.
Um, no, I don't think it's meeting anyone's expectations. Reviews have been horrible, box office was way below expectations and ratings from people who have seen the movie have been equally bad.
Oprah
It should have been bigger. It'll still be the biggest animated movie of the year when it's all said and done, but I think it should have done better. I'm not sure what the problem is. I think it's one of their best movies. But I've talked to some people (my brother who has three kids for instance) who said they weren't interested in taking their kids to see it. I don't get it. Not enough stupid song and dance I guess.
We won't know about the rankings for sure until the end of summer, Labor Day. Needless to say, neither of us picked The Dark Knight to break like a hundred records.
Yeah I'd totally agree with you., Wall-E looked to be all that, not sure why it wasnt on par with Shrek success wise…looked to be one of their best ones… I had hoped it did better… =(
lol… and we havent see Letterman host the Oscars since…