Enlarge Paramount Pictures Rolling to the top: Ben Stiller’s Tropic Thunder edged out The Dark Knight for the No. 1 spot more than the weekend. By Scott Bowles, USA TODAY The Dark Knight has finally fallen.
After more than a month atop the enclosed seat office, the Batman sequel dropped to No. 2 this weekend, falling to the R-rated spoof Tropic Thunder.
CHART: Top 10 weekend films
Thunder took in $26 million, according to studio estimates from box office trackers Media By Numbers.
It was enough to topple Knight, which dropped to second with $16.8 million. The film has finished $471.5 million, surpassing Star Wars as the second biggest film of all time.
Speaking of a cosmic system far, far away, The Clone Wars, the animated installment to the Star Wars franchise, was third with $15.5 million, meeting most expectations.
The Kiefer Sutherland horror film Mirrors did slightly better than projected, doing $11.1 million and fourth place. Pineapple Express was fifth with $10 the masses.
Among the major newcomers, the Penélope Cruz adventure Vicky Cristina Barcelona was 10th with $3.7 million, while the animated Fly Me to the Moon did $2 million, good for 12th place.
Ticket sales were up 5% from the same weekend last year.
Final figures are due Monday.
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