Amazon.co.uk Widgets
Den of Geek

Home | Movies Archive

US box office report: Tropic Thunder wins weak weekend

Ron Hogan


The summer draws to a close, and Tropic Thunder wins a third weekend running. Can Nic Cage stop it next week?

Published on Sep 1, 2008

 While hurricanes devastate the Gulf Coast of the United States and the rest of the country enjoys a well-deserved Labor Day holiday weekend, Tropic Thunder stayed atop the weekend box office for the third week in a row. Ben Stiller’s Hollywood farce picked up $11.5 million to win turned out to be a very weak box office. The summer season is officially over.

The launch of so many lighthearted comedies during a pretty tense weekend for significant portions of the country probably didn’t work out too well. While the serious movies, such as Vin Diesel’s Babylon AD (second place, $9.5 million) and Don Cheadle’s Traitor (fifth place, $7.8 million) did relatively well, the comedies were mostly forgotten. Disaster Movie (seventh place, $5.7 million) was the only new comedy to place at the box office as College ($2.11 million) barely managed to make the top fifteen, and was nowhere near the top ten.

Among the holdovers, there was some very interesting movement among the top ten. The Dark Knight, fourth place last week, rose this week back to third place on the strength of $8.6 million at the box office. As you’ve already read, it crossed the $500 million barrier this weekend. That makes it only the second movie in history to gross that amount of money.

Last week’s eighth place film, Mamma Mia!, is still in eighth place this weekend, with $4.35 million. That’s actually an increase over last week’s $4.31 million despite losing 358 theaters in the States. The global phenomenon is getting re-released as a karaoke version soon, which means this frightening $340 million dollar worldwide smash might find a second wind.

Meanwhile, Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona found its way back to the top ten after falling out last week. The movie finds itself in tenth place with receipts of $2.8 million in only 692 screens. You’d think by now they’d roll it out a little wider, but MGM and the Weinsteins seem content to rake in the bucks with minimal investment in theater space.

Perhaps I was wrong when I said the weekend was bad for comedies. Maybe it was just bad for the new comedies, as the holdover comedies seemed to fare very well. The House Bunny (fourth place, $8.3 million) continues to rock the box office. Even Pineapple Express (ninth place, $3.5 million) did fairly well as it stands poised to cross the $80 million dollar barrier.

The only uninteresting film at the box office, in terms of trends, is Death Race. The film is in sixth place this weekend, with $6.29 million in business. It did add five screens in the US, but other than that it seems to have the standard box office slide for movies of its ilk.

Speaking of uninteresting, the only film rolling out this weekend is the Nicolas Cage version of Bangkok Dangerous. While there’s some mild intrigue with the Pang Brothers remaking their own film, this looks to be another movie with everyone’s favorite wannabe Elvis in a crazy wig, basically acting like I’d imagine Nicolas Cage acts in real life. Sarah and other Nic Cage fans are going to love it. As for me, I’m undecided. I guess we’ll all decide what we think about the movie come September 5.

Ron Hogan wishes all the best for the folks weathering Hurricane Gustav. Find more by Ron at his blog, Subtle Bluntness , and daily at Shaktronics and PopFi .

 

facebook digg delicious furl stumbleupon | Comment | Permalink | Trackbacks (0) | Email | Print this

Users Comments

Re: US box office report: Tropic Thunder wins weak weekend
Posted By DuncanMonkey 1 September 2, 2008 02:45:11 PM

Ahaaaa... Somehow reading this has just made me realise that I must send Sarah a message - Cage on the big screen - hooray!

Re: US box office report: Tropic Thunder wins weak weekend
Posted By RonHogan 1 September 3, 2008 04:13:24 AM

I somehow doubt anyone needs to remind Sarah about Nic Cage on the big screen.
Post a Comment
 
Ben Stiller's Tropic Thunder Ben Stiller's Tropic Thunder

Follow Den of Geek on

Related Articles

SEARCH

Advanced

Broadband

Mobile Broadband

Compare over 100 mobile broadband & broadband deals online!

Mobile Phones

LG ArenaHTC Magic

Compare over 250 mobile phones &
52,000 deals!