ROTTEN TOMATOES: Box Office Guru Wrapup: Tropic Thunder Holds Strong

Box Office Guru Wrapup: Tropic Thunder Holds Strong

While the Bunny hops close on its heels

by Gitesh Pandya | August 24, 2008

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The final days of summer took their toll on the North American box office as moviegoing slowed down dramatically allowing Tropic Thunder to remain in first place for a second straight weekend. Among the frame's four new releases, young females showed the most muscle powering the sorority comedy The House Bunny into second place while adult men pushed Jason Statham's latest action pic Death Race into third. Ice Cube's football drama The Longshots barely made the top ten while the Rainn Wilson comedy The Rocker was dead on arrival bowing at number twelve.

Ben Stiller and his platoon of actors stayed in control of the box office with a healthy second weekend for Tropic Thunder which grossed an estimated $16.1M. Dropping only 38%, the R-rated action-comedy displayed a good hold and bumped its 12-day total to a solid $65.7M. The $90M Paramount release looks set to find its way to $105-115M.

Anna Faris attracted a solid opening to her new comedy The House Bunny which performed above expectations with an estimated $15.1M. The PG-13 movie finds the star of the Scary Movie franchise playing an ex-Playboy bunny who becomes a house mother to a sorority of misfits. Sony released the film in 2,714 sites and averaged an encouraging $5,564. With so many action films and R-rated comedies aimed at guys over the past month, Bunny served as effective counter-programming for young women who showed up in impressive numbers. According to studio research, an incredibly high 68% of the audience was female while 54% was under 21. The production budget was $25M.

Finishing in third place for the weekend was Universal's new Jason Statham actioner Death Race with an estimated $12.3M from 2,532 locations. Averaging a respectable $4,855 per theater, the R-rated pic performed in line with the actor's other offerings debuting higher than 2006's Crank ($10.5M) but lower than 2005's Transporter 2 ($16.5M). Both of those opened over Labor Day weekend. As expected, adult men made up the bulk of the audience with studio research showing that 63% of the crowd was male while 52% was 25 and older. Death Race carried a $45M pricetag making it more expensive than most of the action hero's previous starring vehicles.

Hollywood's biggest superhero ever followed in fourth as The Dark Knight pulled in an estimated $10.3M in its sixth weekend. Sliding only 37%, the Warner Bros. megasmash pushed its record cume up to $489.2M and should surpass the $500M mark next weekend. The magic continued overseas with an estimated $34M from 62 markets this weekend sending the international total soaring to $381.2M. With the global tally now standing at a towering $870M, The Dark Knight should easily become only the fourth movie in history to top $1 billion at the worldwide box office following Titanic, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.

Suffering the worst decline in the top ten was Star Wars: The Clone Wars which tumbled 61% to an estimated $5.7M pushing the ten-day tally to $25M. The Warner Bros. animated entry should finish up with $36-38M. Sony's Pineapple Express followed closely with an estimated $5.6M, down 43%, putting the stoner comedy's cume at $73.9M. The horror flick Mirrors dropped 56% to an estimated $4.9M in its second weekend and has scared up $20.1M after ten days. A $30M tally is likely by the end of the run.

Two films tied for eighth place with an estimated $4.3M in ticket sales each. Universal's musical smash Mamma Mia! dipped just 29% and raised its domestic haul to $124.5M. This Friday the studio will release in selected theaters a new sing-along version of the hit film for Labor Day weekend which includes on-screen lyrics to all the songs to encourage audience participation, and prolong the box office run. Mamma's overseas sum zoomed to $232.5M pushing the global gross to a stellar $357M.

The other film in the number eight spot was the new Ice Cube football pic The Longshots which averaged only $2,058 from 2,089 locations. The PG-rated film was released by MGM and earned lukewarm reviews. Universal rounded out the top ten with The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor which grossed an estimated $4.1M, down 50%, for a $93.8M total. The overseas tally climbed to $222.4M giving the China-set adventure sequel a muscular $316M worldwide with 70% coming from outside of North America.

Fox's new Rainn Wilson comedy The Rocker debuted to pathetic results and failed to make the top ten. The PG-13 pic headlined by the co-star of The Office bowed to an estimated $2.75M from 2,784 theaters (the most for any new film this weekend) and averaged a pitiful $988 per site. It was the worst opening in box office history for a film bowing in 2,600+ theaters. Audiences ignored the pic sending a message to Hollywood that Wilson is not yet ready to graduate from second banana in the sitcom world to leading man of a theatrical release. Since its Wednesday launch, The Rocker has collected just $3.8M in five days.

Making a moderate splash in limited release was the quirky indie comedy Hamlet 2 which debuted with an estimated $435,000 from 103 theaters for a mediocre $4,226 average. A smash at this year's Sundance film festival where it was bought by Focus for a hefty $10M, the R-rated tale tells of a high school drama teacher and his students who put on a controversial musical in order to save their arts program. The distributor is hoping that this weekend's limited debut will spark word-of-mouth that will fuel next weekend's national expansion into 1,500 theaters over the long holiday session. But given this start, the road ahead will not be a smooth one. In 1999, Rushmore debuted in the same number of theaters but grossed $1.8M on opening weekend with a $17,881 average on its way to $17.1M overall. Almost Famous launched in 131 sites with $2.3M and a $17,669 average on its way to $32.5M. Hamlet 2 will need plenty of fan support if it wants to stay on screens into the fall season.

The top ten films grossed an estimated $82.6M which was off 2% from last year when Superbad stayed in the top spot with $18M in its sophomore frame; but up 9% from 2006 when Invincible debuted at number one with $17M.

Author: Gitesh Pandya, www.BoxOfficeGuru.com

(1-18 of 18 posts) | Reply

thereign writes:
on Aug 25 2008 04:27 AM

Sorry to see Dark Knight beaten by something like House Bunny, but at least it's still keepin' on. Clone Wars blew chunks, so maybe Lucas will get the message that it's getting harder for him to peddle bulls**t to the fans, whether older or kiddies.

(Reply to this)

Greg_Arious writes:
on Aug 25 2008 06:28 AM

Was I the only person expecting Tropic Thunder to be a much bigger hit? With all that star power and a good premise I thought it would be doing much bigger numbers.

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Gimy writes:
on Aug 25 2008 08:00 AM

house bunny looked as stupid as the dumb2ss flick with the two snl chics that was released months ago. no idea why both actually made money, both looked stupid. it should be illegal to release anything about playboy rated pg13 anyway. that was as dumb as casting hottie Jamie Lynn Sigler to be Heidi Fleiss...and not having nudity. ridiculous...

Death race was really coo, should have made more along with Tropic Thunder. Thunder SHOULD be making more, it's actually funny and full of starpower. perhaps they should start wh3ring out the fact that alot of celebs had a role(no matter how small) in it.

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EXECUTIVE-BOSS writes:
on Aug 25 2008 08:33 AM

I agree...Tropic Thunder should be making ALOT more money...I guess cuz it's rated R but then look at other R rated flicks in the past that have made alot of money...they should figure out another marketing scheme while it's still in theatres

I'll leave The House Bunny for teenage girls...for whom it was made and intended...LOL

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sfsilver writes:
on Aug 25 2008 09:32 AM

Hamlet 2 was easily the funniest movie I've seen this year. Loved it. Hope it finds an audience. I enjoyed Tropic Thunder too, but The subversive humor of Hamlet 2 beat it laugh for laugh.

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the train writes:
on Aug 25 2008 10:23 AM

i wasn't expecting tropic thunder to be much of a hit at all. jack black's roles for people over the age of 8 have been in crap movies, and not many people are fans of ben stiller, so i've never really understood the "star power" aspect of the media coverage of this movie. more like "name recognition." it's also rated r, which hurts it, and satire is not as popular as dick jokes, even if TT, as a satire, is pretty tame. i'm very pleased to see it doing as well as it's doing.

as for hamlet 2--that's going to be polarizing. i enjoyed it, but i think it's a rental at best. however, i felt that the message of the play itself is powerful and timeless, adding unexpected weight to the movie. i think people who do see this movie will be rewarded in ways they weren't anticipating.

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tomwaitsjr writes:
on Aug 25 2008 11:36 AM

hamlet 2 looks terrible.

AND it may be a rip-off, check out the film coming out called Hamlet ADD. Film is about a time-traveling Hamlet. Hamlet 2 is about people who put on a play. . . about a time traveling Hamlet.

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tidussquall10x writes:
on Aug 25 2008 12:59 PM

In reply to this comment (#2000967)
dude........it's not like TDK got beat by The House Bunny.....

It's just TDK has been out for 6 weeks
10 mil is great

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dahluzz writes:
on Aug 25 2008 01:44 PM

I have to let people know about the majesty of 'hamlet 2.' got some free passes at karaoke last week, saw it, and it was great.

steve coogan is hilarious and 'rock me sexy jesus' is one of the catchiest songs i've ever heard. it's in the early running for a best orginal song oscar in my book. 'tropic' and 'pineapple' are both good late-summer comedies, but 'hamlet 2' is destined to take on a cult following in the vein of 'napoleon dynamite.' after seeing it, i guessed that i had laughed 50 times during the course of the film. now that's a lot.

if you don't find the movie funny, you didn't get it... and all there really is to get is that Coogan's character of Dana Marschz is one of the best to come around in a long time. SEE IT!

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sliknik27 writes:
on Aug 25 2008 02:47 PM

I have no interest in Hamlet 2, but I'm surprised it had such a weak debut with the incredible amount of advertising I've seen for the movie. It may obtain cult status one day, but it doesn't look like it will break the bank next weekend.

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Austra1ia writes:
on Aug 25 2008 03:42 PM

Wow what an embarrassing opening for Rainn Wilson and The Rocker. I knew they film wouldn't do very well, but even I was surprised by such low numbers. Rainn needs to simply accept that Dwight Schrute will be the only successful character he will ever play (which still isn't too shabby as Dwight is now a TV icon).

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rockclmbr6 writes:
on Aug 25 2008 04:26 PM

In reply to this comment (#2001449)
Actually Hamlet 2 only debuted in limited release, so it's bound to have pretty low numbers. Everyone I know is talking about it and wants to see it when it comes out in wide release next week...I have a feeling it will be a moderate hit.

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The_Duckling writes:
on Aug 25 2008 04:36 PM

I'm pretty sure The Office is box-office poison. While everyone loves the show and will watch it every week, both John Krasinski (assuming I spelled that right, he plays Jim) and Rainn Wilson (Dwight) have tried to make a big comedic hit and they've both failed (Rainn made The Rocker and John made that movie with Robin Williams. You know the one). Jenna Fischer (again, I'm not sure about the spelling, but she plays Pam) has been in some good movies like Dodgeball, but once she got on The Office, her movies like Dewey Cox didn't do so well. And don't even start with Steve Carell and Evan Almighty. I know he made $201 mil world-wide on Get Smart, but still.

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TombstoneLawDog writes:
on Aug 25 2008 06:42 PM

I like Rainn Wilson but this movie looked like 'suck' incarnate from the first commercial I saw. He's gotta pick better movies or they're going to start blowing back negatively on Dwight Schrute.

Tropic Thunder was good, but it was pretty much exactly what I expected from Stiller. LOTS of energy spent for a *few* good jokes. I just don't think he's nearly as funny as he thinks he is. I'm honestly not surprised that the movie isn't ringing the bell. I should say that, over-all, it was an enjoyable movie.

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goldmonkee writes:
on Aug 25 2008 08:04 PM

I love Anna Faris. Not too interested in "The House Bunny", but glad to see it doing ok...hopefully it leads to "better" roles.

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scarletsmith writes:
on Aug 26 2008 07:27 AM

In reply to this comment (#2001007)
I frankly didn't expect TT to be the hit that it has been. I agree with the "Name recognition != star power" that has been stated before, plus it's R-rated, and it's a satire. The "RDJ as black man" may be a curiosity inducer, and I do think WoM helps (I called 3 friends after seeing the movie and said they HAD to go see it, and I've told pretty much every friend since then that if they haven't gone to see it, they should). The "Simple Jack" controversy is just ridiculous, and I think most intelligent people get that what was being mocked in the "retard" dialogue was method acting and the Academy's fascination with actors giving "mentally challenged" performances.

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astrangefish writes:
on Aug 26 2008 11:59 AM

.."Star Wars: The Clone Wars".. .."The Warner Bros. animated entry should finish up with $36-38M".. (for a rubbish cartoon based on rubbish films).
Hmm, doesn't look like i'll be able to change my general opinion of American intelligence THIS week...

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Derbeste writes:
on Aug 28 2008 01:44 PM

In reply to this comment (#2002798)
How much intelligence to you need to be a kid?

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