The Pineapple Express Can’t Overtake The Dark Knight As The Batman Flick Becomes The Third Highest Grossing Movie Of All Time

With the summer starting to wind down a bit, the weekend box office was at its lowest tally of the season. However, there was still enough business to send The Dark Knight to number one again and help it become the third highest grossing movie of all time. The stoner flick, Pineapple Express, gave up the weekend when the studio moved the opening to Wednesday, but it still managed to take a solid silver. Meanwhile, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 showed there’s a market for used jeans as it debuted to respectable numbers.

For the fourth weekend in a row, The Dark Knight managed to stay number one at the box office. It is the first film to do so since 2003/2004 when Lord of the Rings: Return of the King managed to pull off the same feat. The Dark Knight dropped only 39% and brought in an estimated $26M to bring its 24-day total to an incredible 441.5M. Internationally, the Batman film has already brought in an astounding $704.6M. The movie still looks to be headed for about $520M domestically and about $900M worldwide.

The stoner buddy comedy, Pineapple Express, opened big on Wednesday, but lost a little steam over the weekend. The Judd Apatow produced film managed to pull in $22.4M over the Friday-to-Sunday period, which was good enough for second place, but it actually brought in an estimated $40.5M since its Wednesday launch. The $27M production played much like a highly anticipated sequel which is nothing new for Apatow films. Pineapple Express actually did less than the $43.3 that last year’s August opener, Superbad, did. However, which such a low production budget the film is almost certainly going to be highly profitable no matter how well it holds up in weeks to come. It seems likely the film will take a hard hit when the highly anticipated Tropic Thunder opens on the 13th.

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor finished in third place in North America (#1 worldwide), but fell a disturbing 60% from last weekend. Bringing in just $16.1M over the weekend, the film managed to boost its ten-day tally to $70.7M. The film is playing much better outside North America and has picked up an additional $141.1M in international markets. The $145M production looks to be headed for a final US tally of just $100-110M, but will soar much higher worldwide.

Female filmgoers lifted The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 to a fourth place opening. The film debuted with an estimated $10.8M for the weekend and $19.7M since opening on Wednesday. The opening represented a 45% increase over the $13.6M five-day bow of the first Sisterhood in June 2005.

Rounding out the top ten:

• 4. Step Brothers – $8.9M – down 46% – $80.9M cume
• 5. Mamma Mia! – $8.1M – down 36% – $104M cume
• 7. Journey to the Center of the Earth – $4.9M – down 27% – $81.8M cume
• 8. Hancock – $3.3M – down 35% – $221.7M cume
• 9. Swing Vote – $3.1M – down 50% – $12M cume
• 10. Wall-E – $3M – down 34% – $210.1M cume

Overall, the top ten films grossed an estimated $106.6M which was the lowest weekend gross of the summer and was down 20% from last year when Rush Hour 3 opened at number one with $49.1M, but up 3% from 2006 when Talladega Nights spent it’s second week at number one with $22.1M.

Next weekend will be a crowded free-for-all as the studios apparently release a summer’s worth of pent up aggression on us and Tropic Thunder, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Mirrors, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Henry Poole is Here, and Fly Me to the Moon all open in theaters. Don’t look for The Dark Knight to make it a fifth week at number one – that’s too much to ask even from him.