Warner Bros.’ The Dark Knight brought in $158.3 million since opening Thursday night, surpassing last year’s Spider-Man 3 ($151 million) to score the highest-grossing opening weekend on the books. The CG-animated family film Space Chimps from Vanguard Animation and Starz Media and a more low-key debut, but it also doesn’t have a $180 million budget to recoup. The independently produced toon earned about $7.3 million to debut in seventh place.
Director Christopher Nolan’s sequel to 2005’s Batman Begins, The Dark Knight made an estimated $40 million from initial foreign screenings, bringing the worldwide tally to roughly $195 million. The pic is on track to be the biggest blockbuster of the year, though it still has to make a lot of bread to top the $742 million earned worldwide by Paramount’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Paramount’s Iron Man set the bar high for superhero flick earlier this summer by taking in $566 million around the globe.
Marking the directorial debut of writer Kirk DeMicco (Crood Awakening, Quest for Camelot), Space Chimps will have to rely on word-of-mouth to have a successful theatrical run. Despite being picked up by 20th Century Fox, the movie hasn’t been marketed as heavily as other animated features that came out this weekend. It won’t compete with DreamWorks’ Kung Fu Panda or Disney/Pixar’s WALL’E, but it should do well enough, especially on home video, to ensure future efforts from Vanguard and Starz.
Universal’s big-screen treatment of the hit Broadway musical Mama Mia! performed strongly in light of the super heroics luring moviegoers to other auditoriums. The movie raked in an estimated $27 million over the weekend to claim the No. 2 spot.
Sony’s Hancock slipped a notch to No. 3 in its third week with roughly $14 million bringing its domestic total to around $191 million. New Line’s Journey to the Center of the Earth earned another $11.9 million (est.) to land at No. 4, while Universal’s Hellboy II: The Golden Army made an estimated $10 million to finish out the top five films in North America. Journey has made approximately $58 million worldwide. Hellboy will start its overseas run with a North American draw of about $56.4 million.
