Weekend box office (belated): "Express" yourself

"The Dark Knight" held onto its #1 spot atop the box office for the fourth weekend in a row and is closing in on the $450 million total domestic gross mark. A colleague offered to bet me a dollar that "TDK" would break "Titanic"'s $600 million mark. I didn't take the bet.

Here's an interesting thing, though, and the first statistical sign that Batmania may be starting to wane: the new Judd Apatow action/comedy/buddy/stoner movie "Pineapple Express" (above) opened huge ($12 million) on Wednesday and had a much stronger debut than expected, grossing $41 million through Sunday and $23 million on the weekend alone, against a $26 million take for "The Dark Knight." More tellingly, the R-rated "Pineapple" played in only three-quarter the number of theaters as "TDK," which means its per-theater average ($7,566) is actually higher than that for the Batman movie ($6,488).

I imagine the audience for "Pineapple" was also a little higher, but in general the two movies shared the same young, male core demographic, so "TDK"'s loss was probably "Pineapple"'s gain.

"The Mummy: Tomb of the Lousy Sequel" tailed off precipitously -- 60% -- from its opening weekend, surprising no one. The other major new release, "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2," took the #4 spot, managing an okay $10 million over the weekend and $19 million since its Wednesday opening. Most of its target audience is probably still at sleepaway camp or spent the weekend going OMG over "Breaking Dawn."

Worth noting at #8 and #9 respectively, two movies with the best legs of late summer: "Hancock" in its sixth week of release ($221 million total US box office) and "WALL-E" in its seventh week ($210 million). (Best legs of early summer are "Kung Fu Panda" and "Iron Man," at #s 17 and 18.) Believe it or not, "Journey to the Center of the Earth" is still purring along in its fifth week, holding down #7 presumably on the strength of its 3D engagements, though no one seems to be reporting hard numbers. That bodes well for the animated 3D family film "Fly Me to the Moon," opening this Friday.

In general, the summer is winding down, and the next few weeks will see one final blockbuster ("Tropic Thunder") opening tomorrow, the standard dog-day release mix of off-Sundance product good ("Frozen River") and bad ("Henry Poole is Here") and sub-par burn-off product the studios want to clear from the shelves ("The House Bunny," "Bangkok Dangerous," "The Accidental Husband") Oh, and one surprisingly excellent Woody Allen movie: "Vicky Cristina Barcelona," which opens this Friday. Here's the Box Office Mojo list, and here's Leonard Klady's take at Movie City News.