It’s been awhile since a STAR WARS film opened without dominating the box office, blasting the competition like the Death Star targeting a helpless planet. But that’s what happened this week: STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS opened in third place, earning $14.61-million in 3,452 theatres – the lowest STAR WARS debut since A NEW HOPE (1977) and EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980) opened in limited release, earning $1.55-million and $4.9-million, respectively. The box office result is also poor by the standard of high-profile computer animated films: early this summer, KUNG FU PANDA opened with $60-million, WALL-E with $51-million). Unless word of mouth ignites around CLONE WARS (unlikely), this will be the first STAR WARS feature that fails to reach the $100-million mark. If there is a silver lining to this cloud, it is that the poor performance may finally nudge George Lucas into giving the franchise a rest.
The weekend box office crown went to TROPIC THUNDER, which replaced THE DARK KNIGHT after four weeks at #1. The action comedy blasted its way to a $25.8-million debut, pushing the caped crusader into second place with $16.38-million. Not to worry: DARK KNIGHT has earned just over $471-million in five weeks of release in North American theatres.
The overall numbers were down, indicating that the big days of summer are fading fast; that left fewer dollars to spread around to the other debut features.
MIRRORS, Alexandre Aja’s new horror film starring Keifer Sutherland, opened in 2,664 theatres, where it reflected upon $11.16-million in ticket sales. That was $4-million shy of the debut of director Aja’s 2006 horror flick, THE HILLS HAVE EYES, but not bad by the diminished standards of this year’s horror releases.
FLY ME TO THE MOON – the computer animated comedy about bugs on a NASA mission – flew into 452 theatres around the country, where it earned only $1.9-million – for a dismal debut at #12.
As for returning sci-fi, fantasy, and horror titles, few had any legs.
THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR – in which Brendan Fraser battles a new mummy, played by Jet Li – unraveled all the way from third place into sixth. The $8.2-million weekend yielded a three-week total of $86.25-million.
Meanwhile, the other summer blockbuster starring Brendan Fraser, JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH, dropped out of the Top Ten, descending from #7 to #11, with $3.35-million. After six weeks in release, the U.S. box office total stands at just over $88-million.
Also exiting the Top Ten were a pair of $200-million blockbusters: WALL-E and HANCOCK. Pixar’s computer-animated comedy about a romantically-infatuated robot rolled from #9 to #13, earning $1.84-million and raising its eight-week total to $214.13-million. The superhero spoof starring Will Smith flew from #8 to #14, adding $1.72-million to its seven-week total of $225.02-million.