Another Blast From ‘Tropic Thunder’

The summer movie season came to an end with another big week for "Tropic Thunder," which earned an estimated $11.5 million Friday through Sunday to lead the box office for the third straight week. The Paramount Pictures movie, starring Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr. and Jack Black, has earned more than $83 million in three weeks, according to Reuters. The sci-fi thriller "Babylon A.D." (20th Century Fox) took the No. 2 spot with $9.7 million in its first weekend. Coming in third was the box-office powerhouse "The Dark Knight," whose $8.8 million take gave it a total of $502 million in seven weeks, making it the second film to top $500 million at the domestic box office. ("Titanic" holds the record with $601 million.) In fourth place was "The House Bunny" (Columbia Pictures), which took in $8.3 million, followed by "Traitor," with $7.9 million. The box-office tracker Media By Numbers reported that total summer revenue for the movie business would be about $4.2 billion, a new record but just slightly better than last summer's $4.18 billion, and that the number of tickets sold, about 587 million, represented a decline of about 3.5 percent