Step Brothers Opens Strong But X-Files Fizzles As The Dark Knight Glides Past $300M Mark

This weekend The Dark Knight was unstoppable as it held on to the number one spot in convincing fashion and forced two new films to fight for their audience among strong holdovers. Step Brothers came out swinging while The X-Files: I Want To Believe underperformed badly.

All eyes were on the Batman in The Dark Knight’s second weekend of release. The film has now become a cultural phenomenon and shows little signs of stopping as it dropped a very reasonable 52% and brought in a record breaking (estimated) $75.6M this weekend to bring its cume to an mind-blowing $314.2M after only 10 days of release. The Warner Bros. film shattered the record for fastest movie to reach $300M as the previous record holder, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, took 16 days to reach the same mark and had “only” taken in $258.4M after ten days (which was actually the 10 day record - which The Dark Knight also broke this weekend).

The Dark Knight also set a new record for largest second weekend by besting the $72.2M that Shrek 2 hauled in back in May of 2004. The Dark Knight now stands only hundreds of thousands behind Iron Man’s estimated $314.9M gross and will certainly pass that film on Monday (if not sooner once final numbers are known) to become the year’s biggest blockbuster. On the all-time blockbuster list, The Dark Knight is already at number 23 sitting just behind The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring which did $314.8M in 2001. It will likely move up several places every day this week and could join the top 10 before the weekend.

Considering its strong hold this weekend, The Dark Knight now has a lock on a $400M gross which it should surpass before the end of its third week of release (current estimates say around day 18). The current record for fastest movie to reach $400M is Shrek 2 which managed to reach the mark in 2004 at what now seems a snail’s pace - 43 days. The Caped Crusader now has a reasonable shot at doing something only one other film has ever done in box office history, cross the $500M mark. Only Titanic has ever managed to gross more than $500M in domestic box office when it pulled in $600.1M in 1997. That number, however, still remains a lofty goal for The Dark Knight.

See below for a complete list of all the records The Dark Knight has broken.

Opening in second place was the Will Ferrell led comedy, Step Brothers. The film opened with a strong $30M estimated gross which would make it Ferrell’s fourth best opening ever behind Talladega Nights ($47M), Blades of Glory ($33M), and Elf ($31.1M). The R-rating for the comedy didn’t seem to hurt as much as earlier projections had predicted as the film averaged a strong $9,696 from 3,094 locations and played strong to younger males.

The ABBA inspired, my mother-slept-with-three-men-in-the-same-month-and-doesn’t-know-who-my-father-is musical Mamma Mia! held up well in its second weekend slipping only 36% to an estimated $17.9M for third place. Despite holding no appeal whatsoever to people like myself, the film has found an audience and has managed to haul in an impressive $62.7M in only ten days. The musical adaptation looks like it’s on its way to a final tally of $120-125M.

The Fox marketing folks screwed the pooch on The X-Files: I Want to Believe and couldn’t even convince former die hard fans that a trip down memory lane was worth the effort. The movie opened in fourth place with an estimated $10.2M from 3,185 locations for a mild $3,203 average. Contrary to what some of my online colleagues have said, I think marketing is almost wholly to blame for the lackluster opening of this film. People such as myself were excited to hear this film was being made (heck, even my parents were excited to hear this film was being made), but virtually zero “real-world” marketing insured that all of us would forget about it by the time it actually reached theaters. On top of that the previews were so generic there was no way they could convince people to skip The Dark Knight to go see this movie. As a result, Fox now looks to the be only major film studio to end the summer without a $100M hit.

Journey to the Center of the Earth ended the weekend in fifth place with an incredibly strong hold. The film dropped only 24% from last weekend and grossed an estimated $9.4M in its third weekend to bring its total to a strong $60.2M. The movie hasn’t gotten a lot of press, but it cost less than $60M to produce and will go down as a bonafide hit.

Hancock followed closely behind in sixth place with an estimated $8.2M. The Will Smith hit has now reached $206.4M and is Smith’s second $200M grosser in a row and fifth overall.

Rounding out the top ten:

• 7. Wall-E - $6.3M - down 37% - $195.2M cume
• 8. Hellboy II: The Golden Army - $4.9M - down 51% - $65.9M cume
• 9. Space Chimps - $4.4M - down 39% - $16M cume
• 10. Wanted - $2.7M - down 46% - $128.6

Overall, the top ten films of the weekend grossed an estimated $169.7M which is almost exactly the same as the top ten films grossed from the same weekend last year when The Simpsons Movie broke records and opened at number one with $74M. The weekend is up 56% from 2006 when Miami Vice debuted at number one with $25.7M.

Weekend Box Office (July 25–27, 2008)

Next week Step Brothers will try to hold on to its audience as The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor looks to open big and challenge The Dark Knight for first place while Swing Vote looks to be the latest Kevin Costner disappointment in a long line of Kevin Costner disappointments.

The Dark Knight Records Broken So Far

• Largest number of opening theaters with 4,366 (beating the 4,362 theaters of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End in 2007).
• Largest number of total theaters at one time with 4,366.
• Largest midnight preview gross with $18.489M in 3,040 theaters (beating Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith which had $16.9M from 2,915 theaters in 2005).
• Largest IMAX midnight preview gross with $640,000 (this amount is included in the above record of $18.489M).
• Largest single day gross in box office history with $67.2M (beating the $58,841,919 collected by Spider-Man 3 in 2007).
• Largest opening weekend gross in box office history with $158.4M (beating the $151,116,516 collected by Spider-Man 3 in 2007).
• Largest opening weekend gross for an IMAX release in box office history with $6,214,061 in 94 theaters for a $66,107 per theater average (beating the $4.7M set by Spider-Man 3 in 2007). It’s interesting to note that IMAX showed at FULL CAPACITY on Saturday, July 19, and collected $1.9M on that day alone.
• At MovieTickets.com The Dark Knight broke the record for tickets sold by a single film in a single day on Friday, surpassing the previous mark set by Spider-Man 3 on May 4, 2007. MovieTickets.com also reports that Friday they sold the most tickets (for all movies) in a single day in their eight year history.
• Daily/Hourly/Weekend Top Ticket-Seller on Fandango - The Dark Knight broke Fandango’s daily and hourly ticket sales records on Friday, July 18. The previous record holder in both categories was Spider-Man 3. TDK broke Fandango’s 3 day weekend record on Sunday.
• Fastest Seller Ever On Fandango - The Dark Knight tickets were selling as fast as 15 tickets per second during extended periods on Friday the 18th. Spider-Man 3 held the record previously with tickets that sold as fast as 10 per second on Friday, May 4, 2007.
• Largest Friday gross in box office history with $67.2M.
• Largest Summer Season opening weekend gross in box office history with $158.4M.
• Largest July opening weekend gross in box office history with $158.4M.
• Largest PG-13 opening weekend gross in box office history with $158.4M.
• Largest Sunday gross in box office history with $43.6M.
• Fastest movie to $100M - 2 days.
• Fastest movie to $200M - 5 days.
• Fastest movie to $300M - 10 days.
• Largest 3 day gross in box office history with $158.4M.
• Largest 4 day gross in box office history with $182.9M.
• Largest 5 day gross in box office history with $203.8M.
• Largest 6 day gross in box office history with $222.2M.
• Largest 7 day gross in box office history with $238.6M.
• Largest 8 day gross in box office history with $261.8M.
• Largest 9 day gross in box office history with $289.9M.
• Largest 10 day gross in box office history with $314.2M.
• Largest opening week gross in box office history at $238.6M (beating the $196M grossed by Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest in its first seven days
• Largest second weekend gross with $75.6M (beating the $72.2M that Shrek 2 did in May of 2004).