UPDATE #2: Variety is now reporting Tropic Thunder only pulled in $6.5 million on Wednesday, which is far lower than the $11-13 million Fantasy Moguls had it tracking toward.
UPDATE: Turns out the early numbers were right with Tropic Thunder nabbing an estimated $7.5 million on Wednesday, which Steve Mason points out is about 40% off the Pineapple Express numbers. Mason says teh industry folk believe Tropic Thunder will grow whereas Pineapple dipped, but Tropic is already playing against its tracking numbers, we will just have to wait and see. Original article follows.
Steve Mason at Fantasy Moguls picked Tropic Thunder to open in the $11-13 million range on Wednesday based on tracking, but Nikki Finke is reporting early numbers from an unknown source saying the film opened to only $7-8 million. Early prognosticators have Tropic Thunder taking the #1 spot with somewhere in the range of $25 million for the weekend followed by Star Wars: The Clone Wars pinning The Dark Knight in third place and giving up the top spot for the first time in the five weeks since its release.
Of course, Finke’s numbers could be wrong, but if they are right this could be an interesting weekend.
The animated Star Wars currently sits at 42% at RottenTomatoes after 12 reviews have been counted, but I don’t expect things to get any better as the film is very average and may appeal to the kids, but Star Wars die-hards won’t be giving this one the love they did the live-action films.
This means you have the well reviewed Tropic Thunder battling controversy and the currently poorly reviewed Star Wars hoping fans turn out all while The Dark Knight lingers in the background picking up the scraps. What will happen?
