First the bad news – The Dark Knight lost over half of its audience at the weekend box office compared to last week.
Now the slightly better news – that still meant that The Dark Knight pulled in $75 million in sales this weekend, over $45 million more than its next best rival. Clearly, The Dark Knight is something of a weekend box office phenomenon.
So what can a forthcoming film – say, Vicky Christina Barcelona – do to match The Dark Knight‘s weekend box office success? Easy – have Penelope Cruz killed by an accidental overdose and then convince Woody Allen to beat up his own mother a day after it opens. Also, if they could make the film inordinately long and so morally heavyhanded that it may as well be delivered by a wild-eyed redneck preacher, that’d be great too.
Well well, it looks like The Dark Knight has set some more records. By taking $75 million at the US weekend box office this week, it’s become the movie with the best-ever second weekend gross, beating Shrek 2 by a handful of million dollars.
Added to The Dark Knight‘s other records – like biggest opening day, biggest opening week, biggest opening weekend, fastest movie to $200 million, most depressing mainstream film ever, film most benefited by a case of alleged mother-abuse, most successful movie about an oddly-dressed man standing on top of a series of skyscrapers in a ridiculously serious way – then it’s clear that The Dark Knight is, um, popular. Or something.
Here’s this week’s US weekend box office top five…
1 – The Dark Knight (Fed up of all the Batman 3 speculation already? Wondering if it’ll be Catwoman or The Penguin who’ll square off against Batman? Well worry no more, because we know who the Batman 3 villain will be – Batman’s arch enemy The Part Time Old Lady Clown Who Batman Is Related To. Fear her, Batman!) $75,630,000
2 – Step Brothers (Well who’d have thought it? The Dark Knight – the film that’s got halfway to Titantic‘s all-time box office figure in just two weekends and is apparently one of the best movies ever is more popular at the weekend box office than Will Ferrell being the exact same character he is in everything he ever does for the 60th time) $30,000,000
3 – Mamma Mia! (Mamma Mia is, of course, the traditional Italian expression of surprise or anguish. However, in an ironic twist not a single Italian said “Mamma mia,” when they heard Pierce Brosnan slaughter SOS in the movie Mamma Mia. That’s because they were all too busy screaming “Ouch, il mio cazzo orecchie! Penso che il mio cervello è stato permanentemente danneggiato, è pelosa vecchio bastardo!”) $17,865,000
4 – The X-Files: I Want To Believe (Warning: unwanted sequel to a movie of a TV show that hasn’t been popular for a decade and a half in ‘underwhelming weekend box office’ shock. Still, Christopher Nolan must be thrilled that he left the scene of Billy Connolly staggering around with blood dripping from his eyes out of The Dark Knight. That’s clearly box office poison) $10,200,000
5 – Journey To The Centre Of The Earth (So what’s at the centre of the Earth? Dinosaurs and massive fish, apparently. Eat it, magma scientists) $9,415,000
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