Dark Knight set for new record
2008-08-04 08:07
Los Angeles - The Dark Knight fended off
a strong challenge from the new Mummy sequel to lead the
North American box office for a third weekend, and is on track
to become the second-biggest movie of all time.
The Batman blockbuster earned $43.8m for the three
days beginning on Friday, distributor Warner Bros. Pictures said
on Sunday.
Universal's The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
followed with $42.5m.
The Walt Disney Co political comedy Swing Vote came in
at No 6 with just $6.3m, the latest disappointment for
its star, Kevin Costner, who has not had a $100m movie
since 1992's The Bodyguard.
The total for The Dark Knight rose to $394.9m.
Warner Bros, a unit of Time Warner Inc, said it expects the
film to add at least $100m, surpassing the $461m
haul of 1977's Star Wars and its two reissues, the current
No 2 movie of all time in the United States and Canada.
Watertight record
The
$601m record, held by 1997's Titanic, seems
watertight.
The Dark Knight will add yet another record to its
impressive tally on Monday or Tuesday, when it breaks $400m, which would be its 18th or 19th day of release. The
old record of 43 days is held by 2004's Shrek 2.
Pundits had predicted that the Mummy movie could open to
upwards of $50m, roughly in between its two
predecessors, but the critically mauled Brendan Fraser film was
a little bruised by the Batman juggernaut.
It marks the follow-up to 2001's The Mummy Returns, which
opened to $68m. The franchise relaunched in 1999 with a
$43.4m bow for The Mummy.
Universal said The Mummy was big internationally. The
film, co-starring Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh, opened to $59.5m from 28 territories. Top markets included Russia and
South Korea, each with about $13m.
Because the action is
set in China, and the Olympic Games kick off in Beijing on
Friday, Universal has been cross-promoting the movie with its
General Electric Co corporate sibling NBC, which holds the US
broadcast rights to the games.
Worst opening of Costner's career
Fraser has had a low profile since appearing as part of the
ensemble in the Oscar-winning 2004 movie Crash.
But he now
has two movies in the top 5, with Warner Bros' Journey to the
Centre of the Earth at No 5 with a four-week total of $73.1m.
Swing Vote, in which Costner plays a hard-drinking oaf
whose vote will determine the outcome of a US presidential
election, was released as a counterprogramming attempt.
Disney
distribution president Chuck Viane billed it as "a thinking
person's movie," but it ended up being one of the worst
openings of Costner's career. Reviews were mixed.
Disney's only summer success, the Pixar-produced cartoon
WALL-E has earned $204.2m after six weeks, and will
pass the $206m haul of last year's Ratatouille.
But it
will end up as only the sixth-biggest of Pixar's nine
productions.
Despite the strong performance of The Dark Knight and
The Mummy, overall sales fell for the second consecutive
weekend, according to tracking firm Media By Numbers.
The top
12 films grossed $149m, down 10% from the
year-ago period. Year to date, revenues are flat at $5.9bn, while the number of tickets sold is down almost 3%.