STAR WARS - HOW LOUD THE THUNDER?

HOW LOUD THE THUNDER?

Until Thursday, the collective wisdom of box-office prognosticators was that DreamWorks/Paramount's Tropic Thunder would finally unseat The Dark Knight at the top of the box office. Now, they're hedging their bets. Tropic Thunder , it seems, may have run out of lightning before the weekend began, with The Dark Knight emerging as the dark-horse possibility to win a fifth victory. Thunder opened on Wednesday to a less-than-spectacular $6.5 million, then rapidly fell on Thursday to $4.5 million -- a bad sign. The Batman sequel remained steady at about $3 million on each of those days. Analysts were unsure why Tropic Thunder appeared to be fizzling so soon. It received mostly solid reviews -- better ones, in fact, than Pineapple Express , which opened a week earlier with nearly twice the number of ticket sales. Apparently the call for a boycott by organizations representing the mentally disabled was not responsible. The Los Angeles Times reported today (Friday) that when online ticket seller Fandango asked its customers whether the boycott call made them less interested or more interested in seeing the movie, 77 percent responded "more interested." The Dark Knight also faces a challenge from the animated Star Wars The Clone Wars , which opens today. However, analysts say it's difficult to predict how the film will do. Although it appears to be a sure bet to attract preteen boys, it could also attract a sizable number of inveterate fans of the franchise. Also opening this weekend is the horror film Mirrors , which was not screened for critics. In addition, Woody Allen's latest comedy, Vicky Cristina Barcelona , which has received the filmmaker's best reviews since his 2005 film Match Point , is making its debut in only 692 theaters.

15/08/2008