Daily Archives: July 28, 2008

Dark Knight Outperforms All Newcomers at Box Office

More box office records fell to The Dark Knight over the weekend, including the tab for biggest 10-day opening and quickest film to $300 million. In taking in $75.1 million over the past three days, The Dark Knight has now grossed just under $314 domestically, easily besting the comparable-period hauls of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest ($258 million) and Spider-Man 3 ($240 million). That tally was also, obviously, more than enough to hold on to the top box office spot. Adam McKay, Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly’s R-rated Step Brothers slotted second, with $30.9 million. A decade since its last big screen outing, and five years since the end of its small screen run, The X-Files: I Want to Believe opened in fourth place, to just over $10 million — a mere third of the debut-weekend take of its 1998 predecessor.

Meanwhile, ABBA-inflected stage musical adaptation Mamma Mia! placed third for the weekend, singing its way to $17.7 million; it’s now grossed $62.6 million overall. Rounding out the top 10, Brendan
Fraser’s Journey to the Center of the Earth 3-D placed fifth ($9.7 million, $60.5 million overall); Will Smith’s Hancock placed sixth ($8.3 million, $206.5 million overall); Wallâ–ªE slotted seventh ($6.4 million, $195.3 million overall); writer-director Guillermo del Toro‘s eye-popping, idiosyncratically flavored Hellboy II: The Golden Army finished eighth ($5.1 million, $66.1 million overall); animated flick Space Chimps dropped to ninth ($4.5 million, $16.2 million overall) in its sophomore frame; and hyper-kinetic shoot-’em-up Wanted ($2.7 million, $128.6 million overall) held off Get Smart for the final spot.

Citizens Try to Go Barney Fife on Karl Rove

It’s been well established that Karl Rove is not exceedingly popular in Iowa, but good Lord, now there are even retired ministers there trying to drop citizens’ arrests on him. A former pastor — presumably not named Barney Fife — and three members of the Des Moines Catholic Workers community were cited for trespassing (by the real police) and released, after accusing Rove of “election fraud and conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud the United States in the time before the Iraq War.”