“The Dark Knight’ juggernaut keeps rolling along. Judd Apatow and David Gordon Green’s “Pineapple Express” couldn’t unseat ‘TDK in its fourth week of release as the comic-book hero sequel raked in $26 million making it the third-biggest movie of all time box-office wise in North America. (TDK sits currently at #34 on the all-time world-record box-office list).
And for perspective: ranked for inflation on the North American all-time b.o. charts, ‘The Dark Knight’ comes in at a more modest #49.
Nevertheless, ‘TDK’ has taken in a massive $441.5 million after just 24 days. The stoner comedy “Pineapple Express” took in $22.4 million which is the best Apatow-movie box-office opening numbers this year, but seems like a far cry from the $100 million plus overall haul that was “Superbad” and “Knocked Up,” right? Is Apatow’s shine starting to fade?
Not necessarily. “Pineapple Express” released itself early on Wednesday and Reuters said if it had waited for a regular weekend release it would have been undoubtedly #1. And that basically makes sense as ‘Express’ has already grossed $40 million domestically since it’s release Wednesday. Basically they took some juice out of their weekend numbers and won’t have the bragging rights, but still have taken a strong haul for an R-Rated comedy that presumably will only grow (you’ll recall they set a record for Wednesday openings in August).
‘The Mummy 3’ came in at number 3 with $16 million and the other major debut this week, “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2” took the number four position with a $10 million dollar total.