'Tropic Thunder' Rains on 'The Dark Knight' Box-Office Dominance

Steve Mason at Fantasy Moguls has offered up the early Friday box-office estimates and it is as everyone (although I thought Retardgate might hurt it) expected, Tropic Thunder will take the weekend top spot and The Dark Knight will fall to #3 with the animated Star Wars feature taking the #2 spot despite a slew of negative reviews. Unfortunately for Fox and Alexandre Aja the new horror flick Mirrors will tumble to fifth despite beating Pineapple Express on Friday.

First for Tropic Thunder, a film that looks to hit the numbers it was expected to, at least in terms of its 3-day total as the 5-day total for the film looks like it will underperform by about $8 million based on box-office tracking, which is not an exact science so it doesn’t mean too much. I am sure the intellectually disabled advocates will have a hard time seeing a silver lining as Thunder brings in $8.25 million on Friday and is expected to win the weekend with $37.5 million. Tropic Thunder is certainly the comedy of the year so far as it is expected to now pull in $14 million more than did Pineapple Express.

Thunder is pulling these numbers at the same time as Michael Phelps is breaking records at the Olympics, a fact Mason believes actually hurt the film considering it skews to an older audience than did Pineapple. This means Thunder may be able to gain traction over the coming weeks as the Olympics come to an end. Of course the $27 million budget on Pineapple makes it a far more profitable film considering what Mason says is a $100+ million budget on Thunder.

As for Star Wars it seems negative reviews can’t phase the Force as an 18% Rotten Tomatoes score brings an estimated $6.65 million on Friday and an anticipated $19.5 million for the weekend. Unfortunately a quick search online didn’t turn up a production budget on the poorly animated prequel/sequel but I can’t imagine Force fanatics turning this thing into more than a one weekend wonder. Even calling it a “wonder” is a stretch as it takes the #2 spot and shits all over the Star Wars franchise causing more damage than even the prequels did.

The next new film we come to is Alexandre Aja’s Mirrors, a film that was originally scheduled to be screened for critics at 8 PM the night prior to release, but only a week or so in advance that screening was cancelled. It seems a few crix got in to see the hard-R horror, but that has generated a 31% rating at Rotten Tomatoes but looking at the range of critics reviewing the film it looks like the horror fans liked it while everyday reviewers gave it a stinker nod. This tells me fans of the genre may have fun with the killer reflection flick.

In terms of box-office, Mirrors topped Pineapple Express on Friday with an estimated $3.7 million earning it the fourth spot, but Mason projects it to drop to fifth for the weekend with an anticipated $9.8 million. This will make Mirrors the sixth best horror opening for the year, which isn’t really saying much with stinkers like One Missed Call and Prom Night topping it.

The only other new release this weekend cracking the top ten is Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona, a film I am stunned to see has an 81% rating at Rotten Tomatoes considering it was screened a grand total of one time here in Seattle. Unfortunately I was looking at the wrong week in my calendar and missed it. Oh well, too bad. Go to hell Brad. Guess I will have to wait for the DVD, but it seems enough folks turned up at the 692 theaters showing the film to hand it a $1.15 million take on Friday and an expected $4.02 million for the weekend. Maybe Woody has made a new film worth seeing.

And… finally we get to The Dark Knight. Batman will take the #3 spot for the weekend, but good news for Bat-fans, while The Dark Knight will fall just shy of the #2 all-time box-office number held by Star Wars it will overtake Star Wars by approximately $11 million by the end of the weekend. All hail the new … queen? in town. Queen is second to King right? Well, not in the UK, but… Oh forget it… It’ll be #2 on the all-time box-office list with what is expected to be something like $471 million. There, that wraps it up nicely.

Below are Mason’s complete Friday estimates and Laremy will be here Sunday with a complete recap of the weekend.