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SATURDAY PM: So Tropic Thunder from DreamWorks / Paramount made $8.2M Friday and jumped 17% Saturday to $9.6M from 3,319 North American theaters. Ben Stiller’s moviemaking spoof also starring Robert Downey Jr and Jack Black with Tom Cruise in a supporting role totalled $26 million for this weekend and $37 million for the 5 days since it opened Wednesday. But the R-rated comedy’s high negative cost ($135+M, or $100M including the tax rebates for filming in Hawaii) is a definite damper on its dometic gross. The studio is counting on Stiller’s big appeal overseas (unlike many American movie funnymen) to make the pic a hit in foreign territories despite all those inside Hollywood jokes. Nevertheless, Tropic Thunder seems to have broken the curse that movies about movies don’t do well at the box office. Here in the U.S., on the down side there’s been controversy over Downey appearing in blackface, and the un-PC use of the term “retard”. On the up side, critics haved loved Stiller’s direction and script and story (with Justin Theroux).
No. 2 was Warner Bros’ mega-blockbuster The Dark Knight with $5 million Friday moving up to $6.7M Saturday from 3,519 dates for $16.7M for the weekend. The latest Batman installment was finally knocked out of No. 1 after 4 straight weeks. But today, on its 30th day of release, director Chris Nolan’s comic book caper starring Christian Bale and Heath Ledger became the 2nd biggest domestic grosser of all time behind only Titanic. The actioner achieved this domestic milestone on its 30th day of release. As of Sunday, The Dark Knight‘s North American cumulative stood at $$471,493,000, ahead of Fox’s Star Wars (including all re-releases) with $460,998,007. No. 1 is still Paramount’s Titanic with $600,788,188. Of course, none of these totals are adjusted for inflation, or higher ticket prices, or number of tickets sold, and so on.
In 3rd place, LucasFilm/Warner Bros’ animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars opened with $6.2M Friday but fell 20% to $5M Saturday from 3,452 venues for a $15.5M weekend. Coming in No. 4, Regency/Fox’s horror pic Mirrors debuted to $4.2M Friday and $4M Saturday from 2,664 plays for an $11.1M weekend. Another newcomer was The Weinstein Co/MGM’s latest Woody Allen pic Vicky Cristina Barcelona, starring Penelope Cruz, Javier Bardem and Scarlett Johannsen, which did $3.7M from just 692 runs for #10.
The rest of the Top 10 were holdovers: No. 5 went to Sony’s holdover Pineapple Express which dropped 39% from last week for a $10M weekend from 3,072 theaters and new $62.9M cume. Universal’s The Mummy 3: Tomb Of The Dragon Emeror was #6 doing a $8.6M weekend from 3,363 venues for a new cume of $86.6M. Uni also had Mamma Mia! at No. 7 with a $6.4M weekend from 2,117 plays and a new cume of $116.4M. In the 8th spot, Warner Bros’ Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants 2 earned $5.9M this weekend from 2,714 runs for a new $32.1M cume. And at No. 9, Sony’s Step Brothers took in $5M from 2,648 venues for a new $90.8M cume.
As for other films opening this weekend, Summit Entertainment’s Fly Me To The Moon toon playing in 3D at 452 theaters debuted to a $2M Friday-Saturday-Sunday.
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What about The Dark Knight?
What about TDK?
That’s a very good number for VCB. Will be interesting to see if it can top Match point’s worldwide gross of 85 million. Since Woody’s films cost 15 to make… there’s a nice profit there for someone.
Tropic Thunder is one of the best movies of the year, definitely the funniest in a long time. I think they made a mistake waiting until mid-August to release it. People are tired of movies at this point of the summer and the Olympics is on too. But anyone who won’t see it, is missing on a really terrific sharp comedy.
Ben #4 is right: TROPIC THUNDER should have stayed in it’s original July 11 slot. It lost some heat because of the Olympics telecast, August travel, general ennui, and coming out before the atrociously bad PINEAPPLE EXPRESS, which stole some of its thunder. The distribution or marketing “genius” who came up with that move should be reprimanded – maybe it was Gerry Rich.
So– looks like Michael Phelps & Co is TKO for TDK at #1 and making a dent in the overall BO
“some vocal African-American actors”
So who is that? I haven’t heard any complaining from the african american community, and Downey is getting raves for his performance.
Name some names, otherwise this comes off as manufacturing controversy instead of reporting it.
on the contrary – i was disappointed in “tropic thunder”. some great sight gags, some very funny, satirical performances thread piecemeal together by the leads, yes, but it went too much to the well with cruise and mcconaughey, and the existential/identity crap seemed thrown in in a last ditch, hollow attempt at poignancy. weird. i don’t know, maybe that’s what happens when you try to be coppola, cimino, stone, altman, peckinpah and benny hill all rolled into one.
I thought “Pineapple” would break $150M easy. Months of promotion, the writers of Superbad, “Paper Planes”, the coolness factor, Apatow, Rogen…
So what happened? Could word of mouth have trickled out that quickly?
I went and saw Tropic at the AMC in Century City, the land of talent agents and industy drones… and I gotta say, the reaction the crowd had to Tom Cruise in his cameo was pretty amazing. He was actually funny, if you can believe that. The crowd literally cheered and clapped after a couple of his scenes. Cheered and clapped for Tom Cruise!! And when the flick ended, Cruise easily got the loudest reaction when they showed him doing his “routine”.
I’m going to go out on a limb here, but if industry people go out and see Tropic, and see Cruise in this new light, some insiders might actually start to think this has rejuvenated his career. That’s the first thing I thought when I saw it…
That is all.
I still don’t get it. How can TT cost 90M to produce. Sure the print & advertising is around 50M but 90M for a comedy just bamboozled me
Could it be that each of the main cast salary is 10M with Stiller and Cruise with 20M? Seriously, do they all worth that much moolah?
Paramount must be really kicking themselves in the head to have greenlight this exp comedy
I do hope it will be a slow burner at the B.O cause from the trailers, seems like worth the ticket price.
Why is others still funding Woody’s movies? Is it really worth it at all? He shd make home videos for his own entertainment.
I’m an african-american who’s a DGA member and i had no problem with Robert Downey’s performance, i thought it was hilarious. Also, the fact that he has a black counterpart in the film that basically clowns him the entire film, makes it even funnier. There were alot of African-americans in the audience where i went and they loved it. Kind of like the scene in “Airplane” with the jive talk, funny is funny!
Why does everybody keep referring to Tom Cruise’s role in Tropic Thunder as a cameo?
It’s a full-on supporting role. He’s in there for like 15 minutes and his character is integral to several plot elements.
Tobey Maguire and John Voigt make cameos. Tom Cruise is a co-star.
Also, Tropic Thunder isn’t simply ‘just a comedy.’ It’s part of a new, emerging action/comedy genre (Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead, Pineapple Express, Team America, etc.) – flicks that are expensive action flicks first, and comedies that spoof expensive action flicks second.
Darn. I was hoping TT would have pulled in higher numbers. RDJ was absolutely histarical in the movie.
TT should have being a lot better than it was. I think if you go in wanting to love the film, and I did, you will come out forgiving it for its excesses in profanity and vulgarities. But then again lots of people like this kind of comedy. From where I sat Downey Jr. was excellent, Cruise and McC were effective in their over the top performances and the others just OK.
“I still don’t get it. How can TT cost 90M to produce.”
Shooting on location probably took a big chunk of the budget as well as all of the gunfire/explosions/CGI/etc. There were all sorts of aircraft shots (very few of which seemed like file footage). Look at the first scene, it had a helicopter, gunfire, and a massive explosion. I mean, the film even had a water buffalo in it.
I also wouldn’t be surprised if those trailers didnt’ cost a decent chunk of change.
Pineapple Express was borderline guerilla filmmaking (Franco gets stitches in his head and the response is to give him a headband and keep shooting) whereas Tropic Thunder ironically seemed like your typical overblown Hollywood production. Then again, I’m apparently one of the few people here that loved Pineapple Express and thought it was a perfect send-up of Hollywood action films.
Tropic Thunder was a good movie and very funny. I hate that they used so much profanity in it though. It really wasn’t necessary and if it wasn’t for the language it would have had a PG-13 rating and would have appealed to a larger audience. It’s sad that they need to add such language for no reason at all!!
With Barack Obama on the verge of becoming the next American President it seems that the white establishment has declared an unofficial war on all things African. The latest attack arrives in theatres this week with the new American film, “Tropic Thunder” in which a white man puts on blackface and pretends to be a son of Africa.
A white man was recently caught plotting to assassinate Senator Obama, the African mayors of Detroit and Baltimore are being harassed by the white legal system and the American entertainment system creates films such as “Tropic Thunder”.
This film is also an insult since it makes light of the fact that the U.S. government forced thousands of African men to take part in its war of aggression against the people of Vietnam.
There is nothing amusing about blackface. It is a highly racist and offensive depiction of Africans. Its sole purpose is to demean us and to propagate the stereotype that Africans are on this Earth merely for the amusement and abuse of the white man.
http://truthfirstnow.blogspot.com
Hey Truthfirst, I think you need to chill out just a bit. What about when Eddie Murphy and Arsino Hall playing white guys in Coming to America? I bet you think that wasn’t funny either…yea I thought so.
I just came back from TT and if it was demeaning at all.
TruthFirst…get a life.
Tropic Thunder was awesome and was much funnier than Pineapple Express. The profanity was maybe a little excessive, but still an awesome movie.
At the risk of feeding a troll…
TruthFirst, first off, are you serious?
And second, did you even see the movie?
To be honest, it’s hard to tell if your blog is for real, if it’s intended as satire, or if it’s created by someone who opposes Obama and wants to make his supporters look like complete wackos.
Hey, Truthfist – you’re precisely what’s wrong with this country. Democrats and Republicans alike long to piss and moan like infants whenever anything they interpret as “politically incorrect” hovers around their radar and proceed to throw public tantrums to prove just how offended they are, all those poor, victimized interest groups. How sad. Maybe you should stop politicizing everything and realize no one is coming away from a major motion picture presuming it’s telling us a real story … unless they’re completely stupid. And in that case, campaign for public education funding, not … whatever it is … you’re posting comments about. Thanks.
How can people complain about vulgarity in an R-rated film? Do you people know what it means when a film is R-rated? Do you even bother to read why the MPAA renders a rating on a particular film? This is like hearing people complain about grisly murder scenes in a horror film. Get a clue, mouthbreathers.
TrueFirst, get a life. Get over yourself. Go back to collecting food stamps and feeling sorry for yourself. It’s everyone else’s and the governments fault that you feel oppressed still, right? Gimme a break. Do yourself a favor and stop promoting your crap website.
TT was funny. That’s all it was aiming for. Nothing racist, nothing against handicapped people, just comedy. If you got off your high horse once in a while, you’d probably appreciate such a free spirited comedy. If you can’t see that, you might as well go ahead and check yourself into a mental ward.. Enjoy your night.
TruthFirst, have you and I seen the same movie? By this posting, I get the impression that you haven’t. I recommend catching this movie, then coming back to see if you have the same point of view.
The entire film is a stereotype on itself. Where did it make light of ANYONE taking part in Vietnam? I didn’t see this.
If you had seen the film, you would have saw various scenes making fun of the fact that he was in blackface, demeaning him for doing so.