After ruling the North American box office for four consecutive weekends, The Dark Knight was finally bumped aside thanks to the top spot bow of the new action-comedy Tropic Thunder which enjoyed a solid debut. The Batman juggernaut still held up well in its fifth attack and became both the number two domestic blockbuster of all-time and the number one global smash of this year. The frame saw five other new films squeeze into the multiplexes with varying results. The overall top ten remained flat with last weekend as well as with last year.

Ben Stiller took control of the marketplace with his war movie Tropic Thunder which shot up an estimated $26M this weekend over the Friday-to-Sunday period and $37M over five days since debuting on Wednesday. The R-rated star vehicle averaged a solid $7,834 from 3,319 theaters. The extended gross lagged behind the $41.3M five-day bow of rival R-rated comedy Pineapple Express from just one week earlier despite having more starpower (Stiller, Robert Downey Jr., and Jack Black) and three times the budget ($90M compared to $27M for Pineapple).

But Tropic did earn better reviews, skews a little older, and has less direct competition on the second weekend so it does have the chance of holding up better in the weeks ahead. The raunchy comedy was heavily promoted by Paramount all summer and even scored extra media attention in recent weeks from protests and boycotts from groups offended by its envelope-pushing humor. The tale of actors shooting a war film who get thrown into harm's way saw more of its business come later in its extended debut period than the younger-skewing Express did. Tropic's Friday-to-Sunday gross represented 70% of the overall take while for the Judd Apatow stoner movie, the weekend accounted for only 56%. According to studio research, 57% of the audience was male while 67% was 25 or older.

Settling for second place for the first time, The Dark Knight captured an estimated $16.8M and boosted its amazing cume to $471.5M. That allowed the Heath Ledger film to overtake Star Wars' $461M tally for the number two spot on the list of all-time domestic blockbusters. Of course, the original Darth Vader pic still sold more tickets given the differences in prices over the last few decades when it was released multiple times. As for tickets sold, the new Bruce Wayne actioner has generated roughly 66 million admissions putting it ahead of 2003's The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (about 65 million) but a bit behind 2002's Spider-Man (approximately 69 million).

Knight displayed another great hold in its fifth weekend dipping only 36% for its lowest decline yet. Overseas, the Caped Crusader hauled in an estimated $42.4M lifting the international total to a stunning $328.6M and the global gross to an eye-popping $800.1M. That allowed The Dark Knight to surpass the $777M of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull to become 2008's highest grossing movie worldwide. The domestic cume now looks to reach about $525M while the global gross may break the $1 billion mark.

Opening in third was the latest moneymaking vehicle from George Lucas, the computer animated feature Star Wars: The Clone Wars. The PG-rated film debuted to an estimated $15.5M from 3,452 theaters for a moderate $4,492 average. Warner Bros. released the film as an appetizer to October's new Cartoon Network series which will pick up where the feature leaves off. The studio and the television network are both Time Warner entities. Reviews were harsh and the audience size was much smaller compared to the live-action Jedi tales.

The new horror entry Mirrors bowed in fourth place with an estimated $11.1M. Fox's R-rated release stars Kiefer Sutherland as an ex-cop who battles spooky spirits and averaged a decent $4,176 from 2,664 locations.

#	Title	Aug 15 - 17				Weeks		Cumulative	Distributor
1	Tropic Thunder	$ 26,000,000				1		$ 37,033,000	Paramount
2	The Dark Knight	16,790,000				5		471,493,000	Warner Bros.
3	Star Wars: The Clone Wars	15,505,000				1		15,505,000	Warner Bros.
4	Mirrors	11,125,000				1		11,125,000	Fox
5	Pineapple Express	10,000,000				2		62,932,000	Sony
6	The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor	8,609,000				3		86,649,000	Universal
7	Mamma Mia!	6,498,000				5		116,415,000	Universal
8	The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2	5,930,000				2		32,147,000	Warner Bros.
9	Step Brothers	5,000,000				4		90,888,000	Sony
10	Vicky Cristina Barcelona	3,710,000				1		3,710,000	MGM