Bats in the Top Belfry Again
Aug 11, 2008It was neck and neck at the box office this weekend, The Dark Knight against the pot heads of Pineapple Express. It looked like the stoners were on a roll, until Batman surged forward on Saturday and crossed the finish line first with an additional $26 million for the weekend. That puts The Dark Knight’s total at $441.5 million, and that’s just domestic. It’s been about five years since a film has stayed on top for four straight weekends in a row. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King was the last film to accomplish this feat.
Pineapple Express was a close second, however. Adding its $22.4 million for the weekend to the amount it made Wednesday and Thursday, it’s cume so far is $40.5 million, which is more than the Dark Knight made during the same time frame. The Seth Rogen-James Franco drug/action movie took a hit, as did everything else, from the Olympic telecasts.
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor made $16.1 million to finish third, and dropped 60% from the previous week. The young female-oriented Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 came in fourth, with $10.8 million for the weekend, and a $19.7 million total since it opened on Wednesday. It’s budget is a modest $27 million, which, incidentally, is the same amount of money it took to make Pineapple Express.
In the fifth position was Sony’s Step Brothers, starring Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly. It earned an additional $8.9 million over the weekend, bringing its total so far to $80.9 million, against a $65 million budget. This is its third week out.
Things just seem to get worse and worse for Disney's Swing Vote, which only made $3.1 million in it’s second week out for a ninth place finish. This reflects the 23% drop from the same weekend as last year, when there was no Olympic competition.
