For those not familiar with Adult Swim’s Robot Chicken it is essentially a professional version of people putting on funny voices and being silly while playing with toys. This special Star Wars version is perhaps its ideal format - for a lot of people memories of Star Wars feature the action figures as strongly as it features the films themselves. Usually tainted with a slight hint of regret that they took the figures out of their packets and made them pretend-kiss each other when they could have been worth hundreds of pounds…

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1 Tropic Thunder $16.1M - $65.7M
2 The House Bunny $15.1M - $15.1M
3 Death Race $12.2M - $12.2M
4 The Dark Knight $10M - $489.2M
5 Star Wars: The Clone Wars $5.6M - $25M
6 Pineapple Express $5.6M - $73.9M
7 Mirrors $4.8M - $20.1M
8 The Longshots $4.3M - $4.3M
9 Mamma Mia! $4.3M - $124.5M
10 The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor $4M - $93.7M

We are now truly in the doldrums of the August release schedule. The studios have run out of blockbusters and are happy to get off their hands all the trash they’ve been unsure what to do with for the past six months. Anything that should have gone straight to DVD but had a theatrical release clause written into its contract will see an airing this week and next. If you don’t believe that August is a dumping ground remember that there’s a Paul WS Anderson film released this week.

After a decent, if unimpressive start last weekend, Tropic Thunder has built upon the good word of mouth surrounding the project. It’s down less than 40% from last weekend’s taking and it needed to be, given the amount of new releases vying for business and it’s $92M budget. It’ll face five more movies next weekend (four new, one expanding), three of which are comedies. Many are blaming the slightly disappointing first weekend ticket sales on its poor release date while others have blamed increased competition (the film did open against five other movies and at least two strong older releases). Tropic will get hit again next weekend but needs to keep its drop below 50% if its to have any kind of chance of seeing $100M. On its side, the film has yet to open in a vast number of foreign locations.

It was Anderson’s Death Race that was expected to take the top spot but couldn’t even manage a number two position, that goes to Anna Faris’ Playboy Bunny turned sorority sister movie, The House Bunny. This is Faris’ first major lead that doesn’t have the word Scary in the title. On paper it shouldn’t have worked at all but the same could probably be said for Legally Blonde, a film which The House Bunny has much in common. Faris plays a Playboy Bunny who is kicked out of the mansion for being too old and ends up in a college sorority house full of geeks and losers, which simply won’t do. I think you can figure out the rest. Trailers weren’t enticing and while its been pretty much trashed by critics, Faris has been singled out for some good notices. The public obviously favoured laughs over ultra violence this weekend and it did well against fellow comedy Tropic Thunder (it was actually leading as we went into the weekend). There’s every chance the film cost less than $20M to make so come next weekend it’ll already be into a nice tidy profit and the studio will begin prepping a straight to DVD sequel.

The scourge of the internet fanboy returns this weekend with another disaster of a movie in the guise of Death Race, a retooled remake of the 1975 cult classic. Paul WS Anderson manages to rope in a bit of talent this time around, with Jason Statham, Tyrese Gibson and well respected thesps Joan Allen and Ian McShane . It didn’t work. The film took a kicking from every side - the action fans still seemed to largely favour the six week old Dark Knight while everyone else wanted a few laughs. No budget details where available at the time of writing but one hopes for the sake of the film it was in the low thirties as it won’t have a chance to recoup much of anything. With the exception of Soldier, Anderson’s films generally turn a decent profit (which must be why Hollywood keeps employing him because it’s not for the quality of his work) but he’ll need some good international grosses and strong DVD sales to help this one out.

After becoming the second biggest film of all time last weekend, The Dark Knight has now set its sights on the $500M prize. It’s still in double figure takings in its sixth weekend of release, which is nothing short of amazing given the sheer amount of new films it’s come up against. Internationally things have really started to kick off with its gross now bordering on $330M, with plenty more locales yet to see a release. Expect a final domestic tally of around $530M. The question now - will Warner’s attempt a re-release closer to Christmas in a hope of pushing it closer to Titanic’s epic total?

Having not made much of an impact last weekend, The Clone Wars drops hard this weekend, off a nasty 61%. Seen largely as an extended advert for the upcoming animated series, The Clone Wars will be lucky to see another weekend of more than $3M. Even the Star Wars fanboys stayed away from this. The Pineapple Express, faced with yet another comedy, takes a hit (no pun intended) but manages to cross the $70M mark this weekend as it moves towards tripling its production costs. It fell perhaps a little quicker than the studio had hoped but it was always going to get a tough ride from Tropic Thunder, especially with that film’s release being just five days later. Expect the film to finish up around the $85M mark, and clean up on DVD. Meanwhile Mirrors, which had an ok start last weekend sees its horror audience switching loyalties to Death Race in its second frame of release. The film will now have to rely on foreign ticket sales in order to recoup its $35M budget.

Our final new release just about scrapes a place in the top ten. The Longshots, Fred ‘Limp Bizkit’ Durst family comedy, based on real life events, features Ice Cube as the former coach of a high school football team who gains notoriety when he hires the first female quarterback to enter in the Pop Warner Football Tournament. Reviews have been quite kind to the film but the public gave it a wide berth. Being one of the few family friendly releases at the moment was about the only thing that got it that place in the charts. Mamma Mia! moves into third place on the all time biggest musical chart, with only Chicago and Grease being more successful. Internationally the film crossed $200M this week and stands every chance of seeing a total global gross (factoring in its US take) of over $400M.

Rounding us out is The Mummy 3, which might just manage $100M before the end of its theatrical run. Thank god for its international take of nearly $200M you can hear the studio execs shout. Elsewhere, the Rainn Wilson comedy The Rocker failed to break into the top ten even though it was in more location than at least half of the chart. Hamlet 2 saw a limited release (and some strong reviews) this weekend and scored just under half a million dollars from 103 locations. It’ll expand into 1500 locations next weekend. Finally Woody Allen’s Vicky Christina Barcelona might have dropped out of the top ten but was off just 20% from last weekend, giving it a box office total of $8.5M.

Next Weekend -

Babylon A.D

Disaster Movie

College (Red Band Trailer)

Traitor

Firstly, Entertainment Weekly has a list of the six albums that are going to be appearing as DLC during the coming weeks, namely:

Foo Fighters - The Colour and the Shape
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Blood Sugar Sex Magik
Jane’s Addiction - Nothing’s Shocking
Megadeth - Peace Sells… But Who’s Buying
Stevie Ray Vaughn - Texas Flood
No Doubt - Best Of collection (specially compiled, much like The Who one)

Personal favourite is probably the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but you’ve got to expect Megadeth to be the most popular announcement. Perhaps the most interesting is No Doubt, who up until now have been very chummy with Guitar Hero rather than Rock Band - their tracks appeared as DLC for GH3 and on the tracklistings for both the DS version and Guitar Hero World Tour. Good news for those not keen on bands becoming exclusive to one franchise or the other.

Secondly, and much, much more interesting is a rumour Disposable Media has turned up itself directly from someone who really ought to know what they are talking about when it comes to releasing the game, but has to remain nameless. The rumour is that Rock Band 2 will be rocking a worldwide release date, meaning the UK gets it shortly after the US release date of September 14th. It’s backed up by a couple of things - EA have stated they want it out in 2008 in the UK and more recently that a Rock Band 2 DLC section recently appeared on European Xbox Live.

The only thing that seems odd about this is that Rock Band, ie. the first one, has finally gained a European release date for PS2, PS3 and Wii versions and happens at about the same time, September 19th. Rock Band 2 for 360 owners coming out the same day Rock Band comes out for everyone else? Sounds crazy, but it could just work…

1 Tropic Thunder $26M - $37M

2 The Dark Knight $16.7M - $471.1M

3 Star Wars: The Clone Wars $15.5M - $15.5M

4 Mirrors $11.1M - $11.1M

5 Pineapple Express $10M - $62.9M

6 The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor $8.6M - $86.6M

7 Mamma Mia! $6.4M - $116.4M

8 The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants 2 $5.9M - $32.1M

9 Step Brothers $5M - $90.8M

10 Vicky Christina Barcelona $3.7M - $3.7M

After four weeks in the top spot, The Dark Knight drops down a place but still manages to see off two wide opening new releases in the guise of Mirrors and The Clone Wars (more later). Our number one movie this weekend is the Ben Stiller directed comedy Tropic Thunder, about a group of highly strung actors who have to use their boot camp training when they find themselves in a real war zone. Robert Downey Jnr. adds another set of good reviews to the ones he scored with Iron Man earlier in the year and the film generally impressed critics. Thunder, like Pineapple Express last week, opened on a Wednesday, perhaps to avoid the five other releases debuting this weekend. It’s Wednesday take was well below the par of Pineapple Express too but unlike that film, had a higher Friday than its day of release. Going into the weekend the film scored $8.3M and combined with its Wednesday & Thursday total has done pretty well, but perhaps on the lower end of expectations.

Tropic Thunder wasn’t cheap to produce, with a rumoured budget of between $100-150M, so it needs subsequent strong weekends to keep it shored up. It should easily become Ben Stiller’s biggest grossing film as a director, with only The Cable Guy ($60M life time gross) offering any competition in that area, but won’t trouble some of his bigger films as an actor. Where does it go from here? It’ll face off against four wide opening releases next weekend so it needs a weekend-weekend drop of less than 50%, something it might not achieve if its as heavily front loaded as it seems, so Stiller will be relying on some good word of mouth to help out. I can’t imagine the recent controversy over the ‘Simple Jack - Full Retard’ topic has damaged the film in any serious way, though Stiller’s critics may disagree.

The Dark Knight might have dropped a place but is still performing ridiculously well in its fifth weekend of release. It’s officially the 2nd biggest grossing movie of all time in North America, having overtaken Star Wars some time on Saturday. (Though it’s worth noting that that Star Wars gross includes ALL releases of the film, including its 1982 reissue and the retooled version in 1997) It’s widely admitted that the film won’t best Titanic now but should go on to see $500M by the end of its run. Internationally the film is sitting on over $275M and still has a large number of foreign locales awaiting the release of the film. Expect a global total of over $1 billion.

Speaking of Star Wars, the animated The Clone Wars is our second new release this weekend but isn’t seeing the kind of numbers usually associated with the franchise. In fact, given it’s the only animated family movie in the top ten, that relatively low gross might have been inflated further by parents just looking for a film for the kids to see. The Clone Wars is said to sit in the same time frame as the 2003 series with the same name - somewhere between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. It’s also being seen as a lead in for the (new) TV series set to debut later this year. It marks the first time that Fox haven’t distributed a Star Wars related films, this one being handled by Warner Bros. Critics savaged the film (something it shares with the Star Wars Prequels) and given its low start and the four new films released next weekend, it won’t be hanging around long. The film should perform well on DVD, but it’ll be interesting to see how successful the TV show ends up being. George Lucas won’t worry though, he’s said to be prepping Star Wars 3D.

Mirrors is Alexandre Aja remake of the Korean film Into the Mirror and features Kiefer Sutherland as a security guard patrolling a department store, recently ravaged by fire, that used to be a psychiatric hospital involved in schizophrenia experiments. From that description you can kind of see it won’t be a pseudo-sequel to Night at the Museum. We’ve not seen much horror in recent weeks (save for The Love Guru) so fans of the genre have turned out in their droves, and having Kiefer Sutherland star hasn’t harmed the film either. Less bloody than Aja’s The Hills Have Eyes remake or Haute Tension, it’s still pretty grisly and served as perfect alternate programming to Tropic Thunder and Pineapple Express. It should finish up around $35M (recouping its budget) and do well as an unrated DVD release.

Pineapple Express, faced with the Wednesday release of Tropic Thunder, is off 57% in its second frame of release. Having lost out on the top spot last weekend thanks to its Wednesday release hampering its overall weekend total, the film has been crushed somewhat by Thunder and the other new releases (not to mention The Dark Knight). All that said, the film has already almost doubled its production budget so no one is worrying to much about the quick dropoff of this release.

The Mummy 3’s international take is more than making up for its poor performance domestically. It should just about make $100M in the US before the end of its theatrical run but on the international stage the film is already sitting on over $145M. It should overtake Journey to the Centre of the Earth, which has dropped from the top ten and shed around a 1000 locations this weekend. Sisterhood 2 comes off a bit better than its release counterpart, Pineapple Express, but like that film, it’s already in profit. A second straight to dvd sequel is not out of the question.

This week should see Mamma Mia! cross the $300M mark in total global sales, over $110M of that in North America. It’ll surpass Hairspray’s $118M within the next ten days. The Abba themed movie has been in profit from some time and will no doubt clean up on DVD at Christmas. Step Brothers won’t see $100M before leaving the top ten but it shouldn’t take many more weeks to reach that level, making it Ferrell’s fourth $100M+ movie of his career (while he was in Wedding Crashers, it was only in cameo role so has not been included in his $100M movies).

Woody Allen, whose last top ten entry was 2000s Small Time Crooks, just about sneaks in with Vicky Christina Barcelona, the success of which appears to be based solely on a same-sex kissing scene between Penelope Cruz and Scarlett Johansson (Allen’s current muse who has featured in three of his last four films). Expect a number one for Allen if his next film is called Scarlett Does Penelope.

Next weekend…

Death Race - Restricted NSFW Trailer

The House Bunny

The Rocker

The Longshots

Hamlet 2

1 The Dark Knight $26M - $441.5M

2 Pineapple Express $22.4M - $40.4M

3 The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor $16.1M - $70.6M

4 The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 $10.7M - $19.7M

5 Step Brothers $8.9M - $80.9M

6 Mamma Mia! $8M - $104M

7 Journey to the Center of the Earth $4.8M - $81.7M

8 Hancock $3.3M - $221.7M

9 Swing Vote $3.1M - $12M

10 WALL-E $3M - $210.1M

The Dark Knight just never stops giving. Not only does it move up to fourth place on the all time domestic money maker’s chart but it’s also the second biggest global release of 2008, with only Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls ahead of it (but only for a couple of weeks). While the film has slowed down somewhat (we are talking about a record breaking opening weekend and strong grosses in subsequent frames) it’s still a force to be reckoned with. Even with the new releases next week the film won’t go quietly into the night. It wouldn’t surprise if the film was still in the top ten way into September. In terms of biggest domestic grosses of all time, The Dark Knight has just Shrek 2 and Star Wars standing in its way (and it’ll surpass Shrek 2 by the end of today) before it’ll come up against Titanic.

Looking closer, the film was off just 39% in its fourth weekend of release and fourth one at the top spot. The last time such an event happened was Return of the King in 2003/4 and before that it was The Sixth Sense in 1999. It also narrowly missed out on the fourth weekend record, that’s still owned by Titanic with $28M. It’d be an amazing feat if the The Dark Knight stood up against Tropic Thunder next weekend but it’s got nothing to prove.

Going into the weekend Pineapple Express and Sisterhood were actually ahead of The Dark Knight but both had given it their best shot come Friday and The Dark Knight swung back into place over the weekend. The only question remaining is where will it finish up. Current estimates have it pegged at $500M, and a total global box office of over one billion dollars, something achieved by just three other movies.

Another month and another project in which Judd Apatow is some way involved. This month it’s Pineapple Express, starring Seth Rogen and James Franco as a stoner and dealer respectively, on the lam after the former witnesses a murder. The buzz on this has been good and Seth Rogen is flavour of the month but opening on Wednesday to avoid losing business on Friday due to the Olympics has hurt the film a little, giving it a lower weekend total than it might have had. Furthermore, it suffered a much higher Friday/Saturday drop than expected proving the film to be heavily front loaded. Given that the film’s budget was just $25M, we’re in profit from this weekend out so no one is really worrying.

Pineapple Express will face direct competition from this Wednesday in the guise of Tropic Thunder so it’s low budget/decent opening will serve it well. There’s little chance of the film hitting $100M as predicted weeks ago by some analysts but it’ll turn a tidy profit and once again cement Seth Rogen as a talent to watch (he also co-wrote the movie) and Judd Apatow as a good judge of that talent. Rogen will be seen next in October for Kevin Smith’s Zack & Miri Make A Porno while Apatow’s next directing gig will feature Rogen and Adam Sandler, for whom he co-produced You Don’t Mess With The Zohan.

The third Mummy film suffered a pretty nasty 68% drop from Friday-Friday and will be well above 50% for the weekend as a whole. Give it another week and it’ll be down to single figure takings and probably gone out of the top ten within a month of being released. The saving grace however is its international take, which could have been buoyed somewhat by the appearance of Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh, pushing its total on par with that of its domestic haul. The film still has some way to go to recoup its $145M budget and it’s doubtful it’ll reach $100M in the US. (At this point the studio is probably hoping it just beats the total earned by the $45M Journey to the Centre of the Earth!).

Our second new entry is aimed squarely at the 10-15 year old female market and initially got off to a good start. Like Pineapple Express, Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants 2 opened on Wednesday to avoid having a disappointing Friday opening thanks to the Olympics kicking off, (though it’s questionable how much damage that would really do). The first film, based on a series of books for young adults, made $39M back in 2005 from a budget of $25M, and would go on to clean up on DVD. This sequel, which focuses on the fourth book in the series but drags in plot strands from book two and three, will probably achieve similar numbers theatrically and should go on to perform well on DVD. It’s doubtful that it cost much more than the first film to make and even though its Wednesday was heavily front loaded, it should still see another couple of weeks in the top ten.

Step Brothers was off 46% last weekend and while this weekend’s drop is slightly higher, it’s still perfectly acceptable. The Will Ferrell/John C Reilly comedy has already recouped it budget and has yet to open in any other market outside of North America, so could easily see another $75M from there. More importantly it puts Ferrell back on the comedy map after the misfire that was Semi-Pro. Next up for him is the big budget fantasty Land of the Lost.

Meanwhile Mamma Mia! passed $100M domestically this weekend and closes in on a global total of nearly $250M. In terms of other musicals, it should surpass Dreamgirls ($103M) and Hairspray ($118M) by the end of its theatrical run, but won’t be worrying Chicago’s $170M.

Journey to the Centre of the Earth just keeps on trucking thanks to those 3D enabled performances. It’ll end up doubling its budget from its domestic run alone, making it a very profitable movie indeed. Maybe they should have made The Mummy 3D? Hancock is seeing its last weekend on the charts thanks to the three new releases next week. The Will Smith comedy drama has just crossed $400M in total worldwide sales and should see at least another $50M before heading out to DVD. Swing Vote doesn’t do much this weekend, after a slow start in its first frame the Kevin Costner voting satire falls hard again and won’t even recoup its low $21M budget.

Wall-E overtakes Ratatouille this weekend but its days in the top ten are numbered. That said, like many other Pixar movies Wall-E is receiving a staggered worldwide release so while other films have come and gone, the little robot will just keep on giving. Wall-E is still amongst the best reviewed films of the year and being deemed a real return to form after the somewhat disappointing Ratatouille and Cars.

Being August we’re now starting to see the studios releasing as many movies as they can as opposed to the drip-feed of May, June & July. This week alone brings us six new releases, three of which are opening wide.

Tropic Thunder (Red Band Trailer)

The Clone Wars

Mirrors

Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Fly Me To The Moon - 3D

Henry Poole Is here

Dubstep man-of-the-moment Burial has famously kept his identity secret since his first white label 12″s in an attempt to keep the attention on his music. With his nomination for the Mercury Prize, the focus has been unrelenting of late and Burial has apparently decided enough is enough, no doubt helped by churlish attempts at finding out who he is such as The Sun’ ’unmask Burial’ campaign last week. How delightfully tabloid of them.

Nonetheless, Burial, the current favourite to win the Mercury Prize with his superb LP Untrue, has revealed his long-hidden identity via his MySpace. As previously suggested by The Independent, Burial is known as William Bevan to his Mum and friends. Leaving the following message on his MySpace, Dubstep artist Bevan destroys myths that he might have been Norman Cook, Aphex Twin or laughably, Banksy:

hi

for a while theres been some talk about who i am , but its not a big deal i wanted to be unknown because i just want it to be all about the tunes. over the last year the unknown thing become an issue so im not into it any more. im a lowkey person and i just want to make some tunes, nothing else. my names will bevan, im from south london, im keeping my head down and just going to finish my next album, theres going to be a 12″ maybe in the next few weeks too with 4 tunes. hope u like it, i’ll try put a tune up later

sorry for any rubbish tunes i made in the past, ill make up for it

a big big thank you to anyone who ever supported me, liked my tunes or sent me messages, it means the world to me

big up everyone, take care, will (burial)

Even being so kind as to post a picture, (which does have an element of similarity to the drawn figure on the LP’s sleeve) the mention of an approaching 12” is the most interesting part of the post, but in an apparently devised twist, googling William Bevan links nicely to Funeral company williambevan.co.uk. Literally. Funeral Directors. Burial. Geddit?

Burial’s superb Untrue is out now and currently 4.4 favourite with BetFair.com to win the 2008 Mercury Prize. 

August 1st - 3rd - The Dark Knight vs. The Mummy…

1 The Dark Knight $43.8M - $394.8M
2 The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor $42.4M - $42.4M
3 Step Brothers $16.3M - $62.9M
4 Mamma Mia! $13.1M - $87.9M
5 Journey to the Center of the Earth $6.8M - $73.1
6 Swing Vote $6.3M - $6.3M
7 Hancock $5.2M - $215.9M
8 WALL-E $4.7M - $204.2M
9 The X-Files: I Want to Believe $3.4M - $17M
10 Space Chimps $2.8M - $22M

Third weekend at number one, a rare thing in these modern times. The Dark Knight fought off competition from The Mummy (more later) to retain the top spot and skirt dangerously close to the $400M mark, which it should now hit by Wednesday, more than halving the fastest to $400M record held by Shrek 2. There’s only a slim chance it’ll take out Titanic but every chance it’ll slip into second spot on the all time takings chart (it’s currently at no.8 and needs just $65M to secure it) by the end of its domestic run. It narrowly misses out on the third weekend record, that’s still retained by the original Spiderman, but really, at this point, is anyone still counting how many records it has broken? Internationally the film is sitting on $128M, but still has a large number of territories awaiting release, putting the film over half a billion dollars from just 17 days on release, which is just beyond stunning. Will Pineapple Express be enough to take on The Dark Knight next weekend?

A retooled, recast and relocated sequel isn’t the greatest way to move forward on a major summer film but that doesn’t appear to have stopped the producers of The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. Rachel Weisz dropped out and has been replaced by Maria Bello (something trailers seem anxious not to point out), Rob Cohen replaces Stephen Sommers and Jet Li replaces Arnold Vosloo as The Mummy. Shooting has moved from Egypt to China and pulls in Michelle Yeoh with it. Trailers were actually pretty decent but the film has received a hell of a kicking from critics. The first two Mummy films made a total of $357M, with the second film making over $200M alone. This Mummy probably won’t see any kind of those numbers but it needs to - a huge $145M budget has to be covered.

The third film is opening roughly on par with the first movie ($43M), which on paper isn’t a bad start but that first film is nearly 10 years old, had no installed fan base and opened right at the start of summer. The Mummy: Tomb of Dragon Emperor cost a lot more and is opening in the tail end of summer, which might help it as competition is vastly reduced but it still won’t be an easy ride and it’ll need international numbers to help keep things moving.

Step Brothers had a decent start last weekend, it was off 58% from Friday-Friday but that’s about on par with a Will Ferrell film. After the disaster that was Semi-Pro it must have been something of a relief to all concerned when Step Brothers crossed the $30M mark by last Sunday. This one should easily recoup its $65M budget and might have got within grasping distance of $100M were it not for The Pineapple Express, the Seth Rogen comedy, getting a release next weekend which will directly affect Step Brothers’ market. Mamma Mia! continues to perform well in the top ten, great alternate programming to The Dark Knight. After a strong start the film has posted some equally impressive weekend to weekend percentage drops. It’s the no.1 choice for the female demographic and nothing looks to change that in the coming weeks.

Journey to the Centre of the Earth’s 3D gimmick seems to have run its course, and coupled with the release of another Brendan Fraser film, it’s on its way out. Still, it’s already well into profit and will stay in 3D enabled cinema a lot longer than your average film would stay in standard theatres. The film has a total global taking of over $80M.

Our second new entry is the Kevin Costner political satire Swing Vote. Yes, you read that right. In some really odd twist of fate Kevin Costner’s single dad becomes the voter who will decide the entire presidential contest. Cue the entire country’s media following his every move, waiting for a hint of which way he’ll vote. The film also stars Dennis Hopper and Kelsey Grammar as the presidential hopefuls. This tracks exactly the same as an Iraq war movie - who wants to watch a movie about a race for the presidency when they’re being blasted with the real one 24/7? Swing Vote won’t be around for long and may well be on DVD before the actual election takes place in November.

Hancock too has slowed right down now with the increased competition from The Mummy and The Dark Knight still proving to be a major thorn in the side. The film will cross $400M in total global takings this weekend and stands as Will Smith’s third biggest film of his career (After Men in Black & I Am Legend). Wall-E crossed the $200M mark this weekend and should best Ratatouille by next weekend. International numbers have yet to be released but the film should end up equalling its domestic take.

International numbers are about the only thing that can save The X-Files from being a total and utter failure. If last weekend’s take wasn’t bad enough, the film has collapsed yet further and only just made more money than Space Chimps. It’s low budget might save it from losing money but the franchise is pretty much dead in the water now. The rush to cash in on the summer season proved in part to be its downfall, especially opening on the second weekend of The Dark Knight’s release. An October release would almost certainly have been more rewarding. Space Chimps is done and dusted and no one will have ever known it existed by next weekend.

Next Weekend -

The Pineapple Express - NSFW
http://www.worstpreviews.com/trailer.php?id=908&item=1

The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants 2
http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809883932/video/7619548