Warner Bros. has decided that its precious juggernaut The Dark Knight still has a little juice left and in January 2009 they will re-release the picture in IMAX theaters as a little “reminder” to anyone associated with the name Oscar how awesome their flick was. More importantly, it could be one last blind punch at the domestic box office record of $600 million, currently held by Titanic.

When TDK started relentlessly obliterating box office record after box office record, we all started to think that maybe, just maybe, we finally had something that could compete with the untouchable Titanic. Eventually, though, it came to a point where the film has slowed down a great deal; paired with the fact that Titanic had a nine-month theatrical run and that we live in a time where DVD brings a lot of profit, it again seemed a very unlikely feat to grasp.

If the movie studios had been banking on the first post-Labor Day weekend bringing in some profits, and let’s hope that they weren’t, they would have been thoroughly upset. It appears that, with the start of the football season, and maybe some less than sunny weather, Americans were staying home in droves this weekend.

The only newcomer to the scene this week was Nicolas Cage‘s Bangkok Dangerous, which only manage to scrape in over the top of Tropic Thunder by $300,000, taking a total of $7.8 million.

Industry observers had expected the Lionsgate movie to acquire at least $10 million on its opening debut, though poor ratings (like RT 3.5 out of 10) probably helped to keep its takings down.

As mentioned, Tropic Thunder managed to take the second spot, over The House Bunny which managed $5.9 million, and The Dark Knight, still in the top 5 with $5.7 million. Rounding out the top 10 included Babylon A.D. at 6 and Disaster Movie, which despite my best hopes, still manages to hold the 8th position.

With the end of Summer upon us (or for me, Winter, but whatever), cinemas are seeing less and less profits from their showings. And though Tropic Thunder has once again managed to grab the top spot at the box office, it managed to do so with a measly $11.5 million. The blockbuster summer is definitely over, and who knows how long until we get one like it again.

The highest placed newcomer to this weekend’s box office (I feel like I’m commentating at the Olympics) was Babylon A.D., which itself has been in the news lately due to its directors hatred of the movie. The movie’s director, Mathieu Kassovitz, came out earlier in the week blaming the likely poor performance on Fox, who he blamed for interfering in the process. Nevertheless, it did come in number two, with $9.7 million in takings.

Far be it from me to ignore past inaccuracies in my own predictions, but it looks like Tropic Thunder has managed to hold on to its top spot at the box office for the weekend of August 22-24. Starring Ben Stiller, Jack Black, and Iron Man star Robert Downey Jr., Thunder managed to come away with a $16.1 million this weekend, dropping 37% from last week.

Two newcomers arrived in at spots two and three, respectively, making a complete moron of me and my prediction that The Dark Knight would hit back up to number one this weekend. The House Bunny and Death Race came in respectively at two and three, with $27.3 million between them.

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.