Box Office News - Tropic Thunders On (See What We Did There?!)

What's up with the U.S. box office? It's rolling back the years to a time long past when movies used to hold on to the Number 1 spot for more that 2 minutes. After The Dark Knight's long reign at the summit of the charts, Tropic Thunder this week managed to hold on at Number 1 by a nose.

It may have won by a nose because the nose it beat was that of a small bunny. The awful looking, but it seems somewhat successful House Bunny starring Anna Faris came in at number 2. Tropic Thunder's success came from a strong holdover, falling just 37% from it's first week. This would usually suggest strong word or mouth but in this case it has more to do with the fact that many people were more interested in The Olympics and Michael Phelps on its opening weekend and so we have the rare phenomenon of a 2-week movie and a film becoming a success over a fortnight rather than being written off for modest numbers on its opening weekend.

In other news, Jason Statham's Death Race fared reasonably well at number 3. The Dark Knight is edging closer to $500 million domestic and The Rocker starring Rainn Wilson from The U.S. Office is officially a bomb. That is 'a bomb' as opposed to 'the bomb', which it clearly isn't. And that is 'a bomb' as opposed to the 'A-Bomb' which would be an unfair comparison...The Rocker looks much worse.

FINAL 3-DAY STUDIO ESTIMATES
1. Tropic Thunder (Dreamworks/Paramount) - $16.1M, $4,803 PTA, $65.66M
2. The House Bunny (Sony) - $15.1M, $5,563 PTA, $15.1M cume
3. Death Race (Universal) - $12.29M, $4,855 PTA, $12.29M cume
4. The Dark Knight (Warner Bros) - $10.3M, $3,527 PTA, $489.17M cume
5. Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Warner Bros) - $5.66M, $1,639 PTA, $25M cume
6. Pineapple Express (Sony) - $5.6M, $2,137 PTA, $73.92M cume
7. Mirrors (Fox) - $4.87M, $1,829 PTA, $20M cume
8. The Longshots (MGM) - $4.3M, $2,060 PTA, $4.3M cume
9. Mamma Mia (Universal) - $4.3M, $1,849 PTA, $124.44M cume
10. The Mummy 3 (Universal) - $4.06M, $1,680 PTA, $93.81M cume
*The Rocker (Fox) - $2.75M, $987 PTA, $3.8M cume