| Entertainment | Weekend Spending | Location | Sum | |
| 1 | The Dark Knight | $43,800,000 (-41.7%) | $10,267 | $394,887,000 |
| 2 | The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor | $42,450,000 | $11,289 | $42,450,000 |
| 3 | Step Brothers | $16,300,000 (-47.3%) | $5,268 | $62,966,000 |
| 4 | Mamma Mia! | $13,121,000 (-26.1%) | $4,285 | $87,975,000 |
| 5 | Journey to the Center of the Earth | $6,875,000 (-29.2%) | $3,008 | $73,140,000 |
| 6 | Swing Vote | $6,300,000 | $2,846 | $6,300,000 |
| 7 | Hancock | $5,200,000 (-37.4%) | $1,869 | $215,995,000 |
| 8 | Wall-E | $4,747,000 (-26.1%) | $1,857 | $204,222,000 |
| 9 | The X-Files: I Want to Believe | $3,425,000 (-65.8%) | $1,075 | $17,060,000 |
| 10 | Space Chimps | $2,840,000 (-37.4%) | $1,330 | $22,091,000 |
This just in: … And with that, Mark Renton had fallen in love.
Well, well, well. The Mummy didn’t look like a full-on asskicker, even with NBC/Universal carpet-bombing their shows with ads and promos, but ennui set in like a motherfucker. Newton has some fuckin’ law regarding some shit about entropy, or something, but the gap of seven years, the fact that the last one sucked, and that no one was all that crazy about The Scorpion King added up to a large-ish opening weekend and a picture that may struggle to cross the $100 Million mark. Before you start feeling sorry for the film, its international numbers are big and with the presence of ass-kickers Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh it should be a fairly profitable piece of work. I guess it’s true that we live in a global village. And it takes a village of millions to hold us back.
All of this may make the actuals more entertaining, all things. With a difference of a million and a half or so, we may see some shuffle up or down for both Mummy and The Dark Knight. That’s not me betting against the success of Batman, mind you. This picture, this huge success should cross the $400 Million dollar mark tomorrow-ish (18 to 19 days to $400). It’s number eight with a bullet on the all-time list, for gosh sakes. And by the end of next weekend it should be above #5 (The Phantom Menace) at $431 #4 (E.T.: The Extra Testicle) at $435, or possibly even #3 (Shrek Deuce in Your Mouth) at $441. By next weekend’s end. Holy piles of money, Batman. Getting past Star Wars‘s $461 is not going to be a problem, though $500 is still going to require a little bit of work, but at this I’m calling the half-billion as inevitable. Even though it missed Spider-Man‘s $45 Million third weekend record, this is a undeniable juggernaut. It even said “I’m the Juggernaut, bitch!” to me. Which, I don’t know why, or fully understand. Well, “said” is not entirely accurate. It texted me, and the text read like this: “Im teh Juggernaut bitch LOLZ. I piss on yr ashes!” At least, I think it was The Dark Knight. It could have been Mamma Mia! We got drunk together one weekend and I put their numbers in at the same time, and so I don’t want to call until I’m sure who’s who. And, look, I’m going to be honest here, the sex wasn’t that great (with Mamma Mia! Geez, guys, I mean really), and MM! said “I love you, Space Chimps!” while she was… well, I don’t want to publicly… Gah. I’m sorry if I hurt you, if you’re reading this, but I saw the end-game, and it was what it was. We were just two ships, babe. Then again, if it was The Dark Knight who texted, then maybe she’s not getting in contact with me and wasn’t crazy about it either. Which kinda hurts, honestly, though that seemed to be what we both wanted. I mean, she was the one who left at 5 in the morning saying she had to go into work on a Sunday…
Step Brothers didn’t fall off, so it does have a clear shot at making it to $100. Since the unrated two disc set (and Blu-Ray) should move some copies, this is pretty good news for the picture, though it’ll probably limp it. Whereas Mamma Mia! is already there come next weekend, and may play strongish for the rest of the summer (which is wrapping up, shit, we’re weeks away from the dregs). Maybe MM! thinks she’s too good for me now that’s she’s got some success. $130 is a likely total. Proving that Meryl Streep has a following. Whatever. Though my favorite role of hers will always be Manhattan. “What would Freud say?” “Freud would say I wanted to run her over. That’s why he was a genius.”
Swing Vote didn’t do much of anything. A shitty ad campaign showed that a 3-D film in its fourth week could top it. It might be about time to call Journey to the Center of the Earth a sneaky success, even though it cost $60. It’s a win in that in the scheme of things, it’s doing much better than expected. It opened the same weekend as Hellboy 2 and has quietly outperformed it. And it may have kept The Mummy 3 from the top slot by dilluting the Brendan Fraser fever. A lead with two movies in the top five? When’s the last time that happened? Dunno.
Hancock is wrapping up, but should squeeze out at least another $15-$20, while Wall-E crossed the $200 mark. When did making $200 ever seem this lackluster? We live in interesting times. X-Files dropped 2/3rd’s. Fox saw the full picture, knew that the home video will be fairly good, saw the inevitable box set possibilities, and walked away. It’ll struggle to get past $25, but it’s not a loser (and was a strike picture, but not an event strike picture, which is a different animal entirely). And Space Chimps has to hope for some video love, but it’s also a not very expensive picture, so it all works out in its way.
Next weekend the question will be if The Pineapple Express (which opens on a Wednesday) can dethrone The Dark Knight. And if the Olympics will have any sort of effect on the box office.