Weekend Box Office Report: July 25 to 27: The Dark Knight Holds Court

Weekend Top 10

The truth is out there and it can be found in The Dark
Knight apparently.  The geeks have spoken and they have
shunned The X-Files in favour of
their new leader, Batman.  It half
pains me to see how dismal the returns for The X-Files: I Want to
Believe actually were.  On the one hand, I wonder where all the
X-philes were but on the other hand, I guess they were just avoiding this
incredibly disappointing return.  Even the musical and stupid comedy followers were more loyal than the
X-philes.  The film will go on to
recoup its $30 million budget but a $10 million take essentially ensures that
this is the last we will see of Mulder & Scully.  I for one will miss you.

The Dark Knight continues
to shatter records as it pulls in another $75 million.  It is now just shy of Iron
Man’s $315 million to take the title of
2008’s biggest film.  No other film
came close to matching Batman’s success and there is now even talk that The
Dark Knight could go on to become the
greatest domestic blockbuster of all time.  It would have to beat Titanic’s $600 million take to do so but as it only took 10
days to pass the $300 million mark, it is certainly the first film in years to
pose a viable threat.  At the very
least, it should go on to take the runner up spot, ahead of the original Star
Wars.

Opening in second place is the new Will Ferrell pic, Step
Brothers.  Ferrell has reclaimed his king of comedy crown after it was
in jeopardy of being taken from him after this spring’s disappointing Semi-Pro.  The
$30 million take doesn’t match the previous opening weekends for summer
comedies like Get Smart or You
Don’t Mess with the Zohan but it surpassed
negative reviews to take the number two spot, which is the best anyone could have
hoped for.

Many titles in the Top 10 held on strongly while a number of
art house films opened to promising titles.  Mamma Mia! saw a
minimal decline, putting in a position to best last year’s Hairspray.  Journey
to the Center of the Earth 3D continues to
benefit from strong word of mouth and should help usher in next week’s other
Brandon Fraser movie, The Mummy 3.  And Pixar’s WALL-E may no longer be on course to be one of the top
three Pixar successes but as it rounds the $200 million mark, it should definitely
surpass last year’s Ratatouille. 

On the art house front, the steamy Brideshead Revisited debuted on 33 screens to a per screen average of
$10K.  The film is expanding
aggressively in the next couple of weeks.  The critically acclaimed documentary, Man on Wire, opened on a mere 2 screens and took in $24K per
screen.  And French import, Tell
No One continues to expand strongly,
taking in almost $6K per screen in its fourth week.  Last but not least, this year’s documentary winner at
Sundance, American Teen, pulled
in $8.5K per screen but it remains to be seen whether the apathetic teens the
film portrays will overcome their apathy to make their way to the theatres as
it expands.

NEXT WEEK: The Mummy 3 is the first reasonable challenge to The Dark Knight.  Mind
you, I guess Kevin Costner could swing the vote his way with his election
comedy, Swing Vote.