The box office story this weekend is only about one film, and that's the record-breaking "The Dark Knight." The final full performance of Heath Ledger helped draw the curious to make the film so popular. The final total for the weekend ended higher than any film in history, generating $155.3 million.
Along with the biggest 3-day weekend ever, it also broke the largest number of venues (4,366), largest gross for a single day ($66.4 million), largest film for July, and also the best-ever comic book adaptation. We've talked about the extraordinary Friday numbers yesterday.
The performance answered the question of whether it was frontloaded Friday, as it wasn't a given that people would continue to come out in droves on Saturday and Sunday.
The former champion knocked off the all-time pedestal was none other than Spider-Man 3, which opened its initial weekend at $151.1 million, taking in $59.8 million on Friday.
While there can be no doubt the death of Heath Ledger made this film a record-breaker, it still would have probably performed similar to earlier releases this summer like Iron Man. The last Batman film - Batman Begins, helped set this latest installment up for success.
The film earned an average of $35,579 per venue.
This is obviously the story of the box office weekend, but who ended up suffering the most from The Dark Knight's success? It has to be Hellboy II: The Golden Army. There's no doubt the same demographic was targeted. As a result, what looked like a promising performance for Universal, now will struggle to meet its production costs domestically.
Hellboy II finished No. 5, taking in only $10 million, a huge 71 percent drop from last week. I knew it would drop, but even this much surprised me.
On the other hand, the No. 2 film this weekend, the counter-programming of Mamma Mia! performed great, and shows the industry the right way to do it. This unique musical starring Meryl Streep was able to take in a fantastic $27.6 million, which seems to show the musical still resonates with a significant number of moviegoers.
Also struggling some in competition with The Dark Knight was the No. 3 film this weekend, Hancock, which fell 56 percent, ending the three days with an estimated $14 million. Still, not too bad when considering it's in its third weekend. With overall revenue at over $191 million, it whill ensure Will Smith will score his fourth film generating over $200 million dometically.
Journey to the Center of the Earth was interesting in its second weekend, as it did pretty well when considering the competition, earning a decent $11.9 million; down only 43 percent. Much of the reason may be the 3-D effects, which can be seen at close to 900 venues. They'll easily get back their production costs domestically, as the film had now taken in just over $43 million.
The top ten at the weekend box office:
| 1 | N | The Dark Knight | $155,340,000 |
| 2 | N | Mamma Mia! | $27,605,000 |
| 3 | 2 | Hancock | $14,000,000 |
| 4 | 3 | Journey to the Center of the Earth | $11,910,000 |
| 5 | 1 | Hellboy II: The Golden Army | $10,038,000 |
| 6 | 4 | Wall-E | $9,813,000 |
| 7 | N | Space Chimps | $7,350,000 |
| 8 | 5 | Wanted | $5,097,000 |
| 9 | 6 | Get Smart | $4,085,000 |
| 10 | 8 | Kung Fu Panda | $1,750,000 |
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