Brannon Braga is headed back to sci-fi television. The co-creator of Enterprise, who has more Trek writing credits than anyone, has just sold a sci-fi pilot script to ABC. Co-written with David Goyer (Batman Begins), ‘Flash Forward’ sparked a Hollywood bidding war and is being considered a companion show to JJ Abrams ‘Lost’.
As we reported a few weeks ago, Kevin Smith got an early preview of a rough cut of JJ Abrams’ Star Trek and gave it a good review (twice). Now in a new interview, the Clerks director compares this year’s mega-hit The Dark Knight to Star Trek and Watchmen (which he has also seen months ahead of the rest of the world).
Universal’s feel-good musical ‘Mamma Mia’ has totaled an eye-popping $307 million outside the United States, dwarfing its $139 million domestic take. And with back-to-back first-place finishes, it has kept overall foreign business decent at a time when moviegoing often lags.
The Ben Stiller comedy “Tropic Thunder” was the most-watched movie across North American over the long US Labor Day weekend, but it was “The Dark Knight” that made news by breaking the 500-million-dollar mark, industry figures showed Sunday. Debuting at second place was Babylon A.D., a sci-fi action thriller starring Vin Diesel and Michelle Yeoh which earned 12 million dollars.
Combined with its sensational performance at the US box office, “The Dark Knight” has totaled $919 million worldwide and become only the 10th pic to go past $900 million by that measure. It’s the second-best foreign performer this year, trailing only “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” with $466 million.
DreamWorks and Paramount’s holdover comedy “Tropic Thunder” continued to dominate at the Labor Day box office with three-day take of $11.5 million from 3,473 theaters, while 20th Century Fox’s Van Diesel sci-fi actioner “Babylon A.D.” grabbed the No. 2 spot with $9.7 million from 3,390.
The $90 million Ben Stiller sendup of Hollywood had a stellar Saturday, jumping 25% over its Friday level to gross $6.5 million. That propelled it past Sony’s female-skewing “The House Bunny,” which finished second at $15.1 million.
With China, Australia and Italy yet to launch, “Dragon Emperor” still has plenty of gas in the tank and will likely finish its foreign run ahead of the $260 million total for 1999’s “The Mummy”. Meanwhile, the Batman frenzy remained strong in international markets as “The Dark Knight” led the frame with $42.4 million n 60 territories.
Even though Warner Bros.’ “The Dark Knight” took third yesterday with $5 million at 3,590 sites, the superhero pic only weathered a 35% dip in its fifth Friday. Having accumulated $459.7 million to date, “Dark Knight” is on the verge of overtaking 1977’s “Star Wars” and its 1997 reissue on the all-time domestic grossers list.
I sense a disturbance in the Force: It’s a terrible weekend to be George Lucas. “The Dark Knight” is sure to pass “Star Wars” for the No. 2 spot on the list of biggest box office hits of all time (unadjusted for inflation). And perhaps worse, there’s a new “Star Wars” movie, and no one cares.