Nic Cage Has Embarrassing #1 Opening With Bangkok Dangerous

This weekend moviegoers decided there were better things to do than actually go to the movies. The top ten movies slumped to the lowest gross in five years and got the fall movie season off to a horrible start. Nicolas Cage will get to claim another number one opening, but this one is nothing to brag about.

Bangkok Dangerous finally managed to dislodge Tropic Thunder from the number one spot and it only took a gross of $7.8M to do it. That’s right, Bangkok Dangerous opened at number one with only $7.8M. That’s the second lowest opening for a Nicolas Cage action film (after Next which grossed $7.1M last year) since Cage became an action star with The Rock back in 1996. Dangerous averaged only $2,943 from 2,650 locations.

Bangkok Dangerous was the smallest grossing number one opening since David Spade’s Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star opened at number one with $6.7M back in 2003. Not so coincidentally, this weekend was the least grossing weekend at the box office (with the top ten bringing in $47.6M) since that same weekend in 2003 (which brought in $46.2M).

Tropic Thunder managed to place a strong second with an estimated gross of $7.5M on the weekend. After four weeks, the film fell only 35% and has grossed $96.8M so far. It should cross the $100M mark by the end of next weekend.

The House Bunny dipped only 29% this weekend and managed to climb to third place with an estimated $5.9M. It’s box office total now stands at $37M.

The Dark Knight fell 34% and managed to bring in another $5.7M to raise its North American total to $512.2M. Internationally, it brought in $11.8M bringing its total worldwide gross to $949.4M which places it sixth on the list of global moneymakers between Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End ($961M) and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix ($938M).

Traitor held up fairly well under the circumstances and fell only 41% to place fifth for the weekend. It brought in an estimated $4.7M to push its 12 day total to $17.7M. Unfortunately, the film should finish with around $30M in total grosses.

Vin Diesel might be happy with that gross, however. His Babylon A.D. fell 58% this weekend and only brought in $4M to place sixth. The 10 day total stands at $17.2M which should result in a final tally of around $25M. A disappointment by anyone’s standard.

Rounding out the top ten:

• 7. Death Race - $3.6M - down 43% - $29.8M cume
• 8. Disaster Movie - $3.3M - down 44% - $10.9M cume
• 9. Mamma Mia! - $2.7M - down 36% - $136.3M cume
• 10. Pineapple Express - $2.4M - down 32% - $84.2M cume

Believe it or not, Mamma Mia! passed the $400M mark in worldwide grosses this weekend ($416M to be more precise). The film is now Universal’s top grossing film of the year both domestically and internationally beating out such films as The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, Wanted, and The Incredible Hulk all of which cost much more to produce. Unbelievable.

As I mentioned, the top ten films at the box office grossed just $47.6M which was down 23% from last year when 3:10 to Yuma took the top spot with $14M and down 3% from 2006 when The Covenant opened at number one with $9M.

Weekend Box Office (September 5-7, 2008)

Next week the Fall season hopes to really get started with some heavy hitters joining the fray. Righteous Kill, The Women, Burn After Reading, and The Family That Preys all look to get people back into the theaters. I’m guessing they will.