The Dark Knight Battles Troðic Thunder Two Hollywood blockbusters have started in CIS cinemas – Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight (Caro Premier), the sequel to Nolan’s own Batman Begins with Christian Bale and the late Heath Ledger, and Ben Stiller’s war movie spoof Tropic Thunder (UPI), starring Stiller, Robert Downey Jr. and Jack Black. The Dark Knight, the latest Batman movie, vanquished the soldiers of misfortune, and became the highest grossing American film at the American box office this year and the second-highest grossing film in North American box office history, coming in just after Titanic. The Batman sequel grossed $3,470,174 from 610 screens in its first four days and naturally debuted in the top slot of the CIS box office chart.

Its average per screen was $5,689, the best per-screen average that week. Batman Begins, which was also distributed by Caro Premier, had a total gross of $1.35 million. Tropic Thunder, which debuted in the CIS a day earlier than in the U.S., settled into second place with a gross of $2,195,101 from 499 screens. In addition to The Dark Knight and Tropic Thunder, the other film to break $1 million was the French crime comedy Ca$h (Central Partnership/Premium), which nevertheless fell from second to fifth place. In its second weekend, it put $355,764 in its piggybank (a 57% drop) from 220 screens, for an 11-day total of $1,497,513. Consequently, the “millionaire’s club” for the 2008 box office year is now up to 96 titles. Caving to pressure from the two new Hollywood blockbusters, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (UPI) moved down to third place, grossing $1,211,716 (77% down) from 617 screens.

Its 18-day total gross reached $26,136,539 and now the film is fourth in the chart of highest grossing films in the CIS this year. The first three are Irony of Fate: The Sequel (20th Century Fox CIS; $49.9 million), The Very Best Film (Caroprokat; $27.6 million) and Wanted (UPI; $26.3 million). The German animated comedy Lissi and the Wild Emperor (Luxor) started in fourth place, racking up $486,372 from 196 screens. The fourth new film in the chart was Igor Vorskla’s $850,000 black comedy Closed Spaces [Zakritiye prostranstva] (Central Partnership) starring Leonid Bichevin, Maria Mashkova and Nelly Uvarova. It had to make do with the 11th slot in the chart. Its 77 screens brought it $39,912. Total CIS box office from August 14 to 17 was $8,956,825, which is 4.1% less than the figure for the previous week.