THURSDAY AM: Sony is saying that Pineapple Express opened to as much as $12.1 million on Wednesday so the Judd Apatow/Seth Rogen collaboration is as profitable as ever! (As are stoner comedies…) This was the biggest Wednesday opening ever in August, beating The Princess Diaries opening of $8.5m on August 11, 2004. ”No one saw this coming. It’s truly exciting and unexpected,” a Sony exec tells me. ” ‘R’ comedies are the ticket in the marketplace right now. Audiences want to laugh and they want the edgy material.” Warner Bros’ The Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants 2 debuted at $5.7M. That studio’s blockbuster holdover The Dark Knight made $5.1M. What a weekend this will be…

Will Stoner Comedy Beat ‘Dark Knight’?

UPDATE: Sources tell me that early North American box office numbers for Wednesday reveal that Sony’s Pineapple Express stoner comedy from Seth Rogen/Judd Apatow made $10M and Warner Bros’ The Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants 2 $5.5M on their opening day. The studio’s other offering The Dark Night earned $5M. The big debut of Pineapple Express made for one of the best August opening grosses. Meanwhile, the pothead fanboys are all thrashing around the controversy over the Shark/Kitten T-Shirt worn by James Franco’s character throughout the film. (Remember the ensuing popularity of the Richard Pryor T-shirt worn by Jonah Hill in Superbad?) Guys with too much time on their hands.

For more estimates listed by title, see box office results here...

Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.