'Dark Knight' Still Dominating Box-Office While 'X-Files' Bombs

Maybe 10 years is too long to wait to make a sequel...

By: Brad Brevet
Published: Saturday, July 26th 2008 at 9:08 PM

Rivetting pictures like this helped X-Files to a miserable $5 million on opening day
Photo: 20th Century Fox

Regular readers probably noticed RopeofSilicon is one of the few sites to not have a review of The X-Files: I Want To Believe online. Well, it isn't for a lack of trying to see it. Unfortunately due to Fox trying to keep this thing as hidden as possible (more on that in a sec) their screening coincided with my plane flight down to San Diego resulting in me not being able to see it in Seattle or San Diego. So, I had to go without a review. However, it appears it didn't matter, not many of you were going to see it as The Dark Knight continues its surge for a second weekend. Could it make it three next week? Too early to tell, but let's dig into these Friday estimates shall we?

First off, as I already mentioned, The Dark Knight continues to dominate. It is breaking box-office records left and right and after becoming the fastest movie to reach the $200 million mark it also beat the previous one week record held by Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest by $42.6 million after hitting $238.61 million in its first 7 days. However, it doesn't end there, The Dark Knight aims to become the #1 movie of 2008 in only 10 days as it looks like the Christopher Nola-directed film will hit $315.61 million by Monday!

As Steve Mason at Fantasy Moguls points out, these new numbers put Warner Bros. within $225 million of Paramount for 2008, and while Paramount has some big flicks in the offing including Tropic Thunder (my review) and Madagascar 2, WB has the animated Star Wars feature and the sure-fire box-office hit Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Which one will come out on top? Bet says Paramount, but it wouldn't surprise me if The Dark Knight continues to grow…

I am actually surprised Mason doesn't mention The Dark Knight's potential to place extremely high on the all-time domestic box-office list. After this weekend it should rank somewhere around 21st place, besting The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring by a slight margin should the estimate hold true. However, it still has a long way to go and in this economy and the way films are pushed out of theaters in a matter of minutes (I hear Dark Knight is already set for a DVD/Blu-ray release in November) it looks to be a steep climb to the top.

$315 million will put The Dark Knight $145 million shy of Star Wars in the #2 spot (considering the number of re-releases that film has it almost seems like an unfair placement) and a monstrous $285 million shy of Titanic at the #1 spot. After this weekend The Dark Knight will have been #1 at the box-0ffice for two weeks in a row, comparing that to Titanic it still has another 15 weeks to go if it wants to tie that film for consecutive weeks at the #1 slot. Titanic was released the weekend of December 19, 1997 and remained in the #1 slot through March 29, 1998. That means The Dark Knight would have to be #1 at the box-office until November 2. Likely? Hell no!

However, there was more to this weekend at the box-office than just Batman. Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly have scored with director Adam McKay (Anchorman, Talladega Night) once again as Step Brothers opened on Friday with an estimated $11.5 million ensuring a second place finish.

Unfortunately for Fox, The X-Files: I Want To Believe wasn't so successful. The sequel to the 1998 predecessor only managed a meager $5 million on Friday and is expected to take the fourth spot with an estimated $12 million for the weekend placing it behind last week's strong release from Universal Pictures, Mamma Mia!

The interesting thing about Mason's commentary on X-Files is how he mentions Fox trying to "lure a new generation of fans" in to see the film. I didn't pay any attention to the marketing, but I do know Fox did everything they could to keep this film quiet, so much to the point that people who used to love "X-Files" as a TV show were shocked when I would mention the sequel. For some reason it appeared Fox believed they already had the original fan base in the bag and decided to completely neglect them in terms of offering any significant footage/clips and trying to hide any and all plot details. It almost came off as ignoring them even though they tried to reach out at the same time, but when that reaching out involves boring photos such as the one at the top of this article, it is hard to generate much interest.

I hope to catch X-Files before it is out of theaters, but at this rate it may be gone before I get a chance.

Considering I went on for so long about The Dark Knight at the opening of this post I won't even cover the rest of the Friday top ten, but I will tell you Hancock looks like it will round out the top five for the weekend with an estimated $2.5 million on Friday and an anticipated $7.7 million for the weekend.

Below are the early Friday estimates from Fantasy Moguls. Laremy will be here tomorrow with the complete box-office breakdown, but it may be a little late due to Comic Con so bear with us.

1. The Dark Knight (Warner Bros) – $25 million
2. Step Brothers (Sony) – $11.5 million
3. Mamma Mia (Universal) – $5.75 million
4. The X-Files: I Want To Believe (Fox) – $5 million
5. Hancock (Sony) – $2.5 million
6. Journey To the Center of the Earth (Warner Bros) – $1.89 million
7. WALL-E (Disney) – $1.64 million
8. Hellboy II: The Golden Army (Universal) – $1.6 million
9. Space Chimps (Fox) – $1.24M million
10. Wanted (Universal) – $850,000