July 18-20 Box Office

From Variety:

1. The Dark Knight (WB) $158,411,483

2. Mamma Mia! (Uni) $27,751,240

3. Hancock (Sony) $14,040,178/$191,543,979

4. Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D (New Line) $12,340,435/$43,504,712

5. Hellboy 2: The Golden Army (Uni) $10,117,815/$56,526,885

6. Wall-E (Disney) $10,070,396/$182,732,709

7. Space Chimps (Fox) $7,181,374

8. Wanted (Uni) $5,072,805/$123,322,635

9. Get Smart (WB) $4,125,021/$119,608,695

10. Kung Fu Panda (DreamWorks) $1,860,854/$206,616,381

Wow! That's all I can say about the opening for "The Dark Knight." It now holds the record for largest weekend for a single film in the history of box office tracking, beating the $151,116,516 that "Spider-Man 3" amassed in the first weekend of May 2007. Not only that, but "The Dark Knight" is an amazing film that rightfully seems to have fantastic word-of-mouth on its side. It could easily make over $400 million total.

"Mamma Mia!" opened right in line with "Hairspray," last summer's musical of note. It may be able to make more than $100 million total, depending on its word-of-mouth. The less said about the poor opening of the slapdash animated "Space Chimps," the better.

Next weekend brings Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly as "Step Brothers" and Chris Carter's "The X-Files: I Want to Believe."