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IF IT'S WEDNESDAY IT MUST BE FRIDAY Wednesday, August 13 2008 Yet another major release -- this one, DreamWorks/Paramount's Tropic Thunder -- is debuting on a Wednesday, raising the question of whether Wednesday is becoming the new Friday so far as film studios are concerned. Last week, analysts speculated that the debut of Pineapple Express had been moved to Wednesday in order to avoid having to compete with the opening of the Summer Olympics. This week, some are speculating that Thunder was moved to Wednesday to (more) MOVIE REVIEWS: TROPIC THUNDER Wednesday, August 13 2008 
Advocates
for
the
mentally
disabled
may
be
denouncing
the
Ben
Stiller
comedy
Tropic
Thunder.
Movie
critics,
by
and
large,
are
not.
In
the
Chicago
Sun-Times,
Roger
Ebert
awards
the
film
three
and
a
half
stars,
writing,
"It's
the
kind
of
summer
comedy
that
rolls
in,
makes
a
lot
of
people
laugh
and
rolls
on
to
video.
It's
been
a
good
summer
for
that."
Bob
Strauss
in
the
Los
Angeles
Daily
News
was
apparently
still
chuckling
(more) |
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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. 
