'Mummy' Poised to Spoil 'Dark Knight' Reign with Friday Box-Office Lead

Only two weeks at the top for Gotham's crime fighter

By: Brad Brevet
Published: Saturday, August 2nd 2008 at 9:56 PM

Man, skeletons really don't make for a very good army… too fragile!
Photo: Universal Pictures

It is already grown wearisome to see the same tired headline "Will Dark Knight Sink Titanic Record?" Come on, let's use our brain here folks. Titanic played in an era where it held box-office supremacy for 17 WEEKS and grossed over $600 million domestically. Sure, The Dark Knight has performed admirably as it has earned $351 million after two weeks, but it still needs another $249 million to hit the Titanic mark. That is more money than every single release so far in 2008 outside of Iron Man and Indy IV with Hancock being the next best thing at $210 million.

Sorry to say, but no, Titanic will not be losing its top spot at the all-time box-office and in this era of churn-and-burn film releases that mark will never be matched, at least not until box-office ticket prices make it possible, and by then we may no longer have theaters and the excuse of inflation is sure to taint any release at that point.

So, let's celebrate The Dark Knight for what it is. In my opinion it is one of the best superhero-based films of all-time. Is it the best? Eh, only time will tell, but for the weekend of August 1, 2008 it looks like it will be the #2 movie as The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor looks like it will edge it out by a couple of million. Things may change if the 10% critics rating at RottenTomatoes translates to bad word-of-mouth, but chances are it is two weeks and done for the caped crusader.

The Mummy earned an estimated $16.5 million at Friday's box according to Steve Mason at Fantasy Moguls and he has it taking in approximately $43.5 million for the weekend. While that looks like it will be enough to take the top spot it seems the $50-55 million tracking figures were lofty and bad reviews may have hurt the film's ultimate box-office performance. I know I savaged it, but still, Roger Ebert gave it 3/4 stars. So not everyone was down on Brendan Fraser's return as Rick O'Connell.

With Mummy at #1, that leaves #2 for The Dark Knight, which added an additional $12.3 million to its tally bumping it to $363 million total and Mason projects it to hit $41 million for the weekend. This will bring Knight's total to $392 million, which will send it to the #8 spot on the all-time list besting Star Wars: Episode III and leaving it $68 million shy of the #2 all-time slot currently held by Star Wars. While that #1 spot may be out of reach I truly don't see what could stop The Dark Knight from becoming the second highest grossing film domestically. Mason predicts $480 million for the feature, which seems to be a logical figure considering its performance.

Step Brothers held strong in its second weekend earning an estimated $5.25 million on Friday and expected to end up around $15.2 million for the weekend and Mamma Mia! is still performing well with $3.9 on Friday and is expected to hit $12.6 million for the weekend taking its total to $87.5 million. Not bad for a film that received bad reviews and even received a bad review by someone that claimed to have enjoyed themselves. What a world.

The other major new release this weekend was Disney's Swing Vote, which earned an estimated $2 million on Friday and is expected to not even crack the top five with an expected $6 million for the weekend.

WALL•E cracks $200 million total after Friday's figures and Fox's X-Files sequel doesn't even get a mention in Mason's round-up as it brings in a measly $1.75 million on Friday on its way to an anticipated $5 million weekend. I am starting to wonder if I should just go see this movie for the hell of it. The craziest thing about The X-Files and Fox has got to be that the studio dumped $7 million more dollars into Space Chimps than it did into X-Files ($30 million vs. $37 million). What kind of sense does that make? It's almost as if they didn't want the film to succeed. Oops, did I say that? There is no way the studio could have set out to hurt director Chris Carter's career after his settled lawsuit with them that delayed the second film in the first place is there? Probably not. Just me over analyzing things. Forget I said anything.

The one film not yet discussed is Lionsgate's Midnight Meat Train, a film Bloody-Disgusting is reporting was dumped into $1 theaters (yes, theaters that only charge $1) around the States in its limited release in an attempt to sabotage their own film. They have a complete rundown of the situation here. I guess we will have to wait until Sunday to see how things turned out for the Clive Barker gorefest. I checked theater listings here in Seattle and it doesn't appear to have opened here.

The complete Friday estimates are listed below and Laremy will be here on Sunday for the complete wrap-up.

1. The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (Universal) – $16.5 million
2. The Dark Knight (Warner Bros.) — $12.31 million
3. Step Brothers (Sony) — $5.25 million
4. Mamma Mia! (Universal) — $3.9 million
5. Swing Vote (Disney) – $2 million
6. Journey to the Center of the Earth (Warner Bros.) — $1.92 million
7. The X-Files: I Want To Believe (20th Century Fox) — $1.75 million
8. Hancock (Sony) — $1.5 million
9. WALL-E (Disney) — $1.21 million
10. Space Chimps (20th Century Fox) — $950,000

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