It’s taken over four weeks happen, but The Dark Knight has finally been toppled from its perch atop the box office rankings. Of course, its fall wasn’t too great, dropping only to number two, but its successor Tropic Thunder is surely pleased with itself right now.

With an estimated weekend gross of $26 million, Tropic Thunder opened on top this week, probably thanks in part to Robert Downey Jr‘s involvement and subsequent press hype. The rejuvenated and forgiven actor is definitely keeping his name out there with his comments last week about The Dark Knight.

Nevertheless, given all that, TDK only finished less than $10 million behind Tropic Thunder with $16.7 million, and just over a million ahead of Star Wars: The Clone Wars ($15.5 million), which has suffered poorly from bad reviews. Though, one look through my review points to a complete bewilderment on my part as to why those reviews are so harsh.

By BADASSSSS

Pineapple Express
Directed by David Gordon Green
Starring Seth Rogen, James Franco, Danny McBride, Gary Cole, Rosie Perez
Rated R
Release date: August 6, 2008

I went into Pineapple Express, the latest collaboration between producer Judd Apatow and writers Seth Rogen (who also stars) and Evan Goldberg, with pretty good expectations. I came out of the theater nearly two hours later feeling as high as the various characters who smoke the rare strain of marijuana that gives the movie its title, only I didn’t have to light up at all. The sheer force of the non-stop laughs and wild thrills this boldly original take on the shopworn buddy comedy genre delivered made me feel like I had been hitting off a bong the entire time. I have a feeling the majority of the other moviegoers who were in the mostly empty theater on the cloudy Thursday afternoon when I saw this comedic gem were probably wondering what I was smoking, and also wondering if they could get a hit off that. It’s no drug baby, it’s Pineapple Express! The sensation was wonderful and I can’t wait to experience it again.

Dale Denton (Rogen) is a lowly process server who spends his days delivering court summons to ungrateful recipients and smoking copious amounts of weed secured from his affable dealer Saul Silver (James Franco) in between visits to his high school student girlfriend Angie (Amber Heard) and calling in to radio talk shows to extol the virtues of getting blazed on a regular basis.

For the fourth week in a row, The Dark Knight has managed to hold on to its place at the top of the domestic U.S. box office. With the arrival of two more movies to make a play for the top spot, Pineapple Express and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, some of us thought it might take a fall to number 2. But it has held strong, and taken the second largest grossing film of all time within just 24 days.

TDK managed a reasonable $26 million, beating out Pineapple Express which itself managed a respectable $22.4 million. Sisterhood came out with a $10.7 million haul, not too bad considering not only the geeky competition, but the chick-movie subject matter of a movie starring four girlfriends.