Tropic Thunder Takes the Lead

This weekend, a movie sold more tickets than The Dark Knight. That's right. After over a month of virtually owning the box office, the Batman sequel is no longer at No. 1. And who better to succeed the box office superstar than the controversy stirring, but nonetheless hysterical, trio that is Ben Stiller, Robert Downey, Jr. and Jack Black.

Tropic Thunder rolled into first place this weekend with an estimated $26 million, ending The Dark Knight's seemingly endless reign, reported the Los Angeles Times. The film, which has drawn considerable attention as a result of several controversial elements, including Robert Downey, Jr. playing the role of a black man, centers on a group of actors filming a war movie in Southeast Asia. It is essentially a spoof of the entire film industry, and hilarity ensues when the actors get tangled up in some real life warfare, only to embrace the combat under the false assumption that it is all just part of the movie.

Thunder's $26 million was enough to dethrone The Dark Knight, which took in just $16.8 million over the weekend. With its all-star cast and widely publicized gimmicks, such as a surprisingly funny cameo from Tom Cruise, Tropic Thunder's storming of the box office was hardly unexpected, however there were worries about the negative attention that the film had been drawing, especially from disability advocacy groups such as The Arc.

The groups had criticized the movie's repeated and casual use of the word "retard" in reference to Simple Jack, a developmentally disabled character played by Stiller, and their efforts materialized this weekend when they called for a boycott of the film. However, the effects of this unfortunate controversy have yet to be felt as Thunder continues to fill seats around the country.

"It took a lot of star power to knock 'Batman' off his perch, but Tropic Thunder did well," Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media by Numbers, told the Los Angeles Times. "As the summer is winding down, people seem to be in the mood to have fun and laugh at the box office."

George Lucas's The Clone Wars took third place with $15.5 million, and was followed by horror film Mirrors ($11.1 million) in fourth. Judd Apatow's stoner action-adventure, Pineapple Express, picked up $10 million to secure fifth place.