There were no big surprises at the box office this weekend. To officially ring in the fall, it was the first weekend since April when no film debuted to more than $20 million. The best opener was the tolerably-reviewed Anna Faris vehicle The House Bunny, with $15.1 million. Interchangeable Jason Statham Movie, a.k.a. Death Race, followed with an estimated $12.3 million -- among Statham's weakest showings and the worst ever for director Paul W.S. Anderson (not counting the indie Shopping, which played on one screen).

Neither The House Bunny nor Death Race could dethrone Tropic Thunder, which held up fairly well to stay on top with a $16.1 million second weekend. It looks to have better legs than Pineapple Express, and should pass that film before all is said and done. In other holdover developments: The Dark Knight fell to fourth, but should reach $500 million by next weekend; Star Wars: The Clone Wars fell an unsurprising 60%+, and will top out around $35 million -- still not bad for a cartoon, I think.

Two more wide release debuts fared poorly. The Longshots -- the Ice Cube/Keke Palmer football drama directed by Fred Durst -- made a predictably tepid $4.3 million bow. But boy was I ever wrong about The Rocker, which was heavily advertised and promo-screened, but landed out of the top 10 with $2.8 million and an under-$1000 per-screen average. Color me surprised -- it's a decent flick, too. I guess Rainn Wilson not only can't open a movie, but affirmatively turns people off.

Hamlet 2 opened on 100 screens before going wide next weekend. Its $435,000 gross -- around $4,200 per screen -- isn't terrible, but doesn't inspire confidence for the expansion.

The full estimates after the jump.

Yesterday, movie theaters everywhere were greeted with the ultimate sight in rockin' sexiness -- Rainn Wilson. Yes folks, The Rocker opened yesterday, and now you can see Robert "Fish" Fishman get kicked out of hard-core band Vesuvius, lose all hope, and then find a new future with his nephew's high school rock band twenty years later.

But before the days of rockers, or fastidiousness on The Office, or even pent-up sexual attraction on Six Feet Under, Rainn Wilson was a space man. Above you can see him as Lahnk, in a deleted scene from Galaxy Quest. As a member of the reactor staff, he has a question for the fish-out-of-water Fred (Tony Shalhoub), and wants a little advisement. Oh yeah, and the guy who introduces him -- Enrico Colantoni.

Whoever would've thought that the Spock-esque dude would hop onto Almost Famous, star in a hit television show, and then get a romance with Kelly Bundy?!

After four weeks as the top movie in America, The Dark Knight finally yielded the spot to the action comedy Tropic Thunder despite the threat of boycotts. Here's the top five:

1. Tropic Thunder: $25.8 million
2. The Dark Knight: $16.4 million
3. Star Wars: The Clone Wars: $14.6 million
4. Mirrors: $11.2 million
5. Pineapple Express: $9.8 million

Four more new releases this week. Will any of them be able to knock Tropic Thunder's, um, thunder? Let's see:

Death Race
What's It All About: Jason Statham stars in this reimagining of Roger Corman's Death Race 2000. In the not too distant future prison inmates are given a chance for freedom by taking part in a brutal cross-country race that can have only one survivor.
Why It Might Do Well: The summer blockbuster season is on the wane, and since this is the only action flick coming out this week, Death Race may benefit from the public's need to see things blow up. Also, Statham does have his admirers.
Why It Might Not Do Well: You can only watch so many spectacular car wrecks.
Number of Theaters: 2,400
Prediction: $15 million

Above: Rainn Wilson lets his hair down for The Rocker.

Fans of Rainn Wilson's offbeat, hilarious and strangely endearing performance as Dwight Schrute on NBC's The Office might expect him to transition into film work with straightforward comedy, and The Rocker confirms that suspicion. However, they might not realize the serious professional motives behind his choice. In the movie, directed by Peter Cattaneo (The Full Grown Monty), Wilson plays a grown-up dolt named Fish with a scary fixation on classic rock. Abandoned by the band Vesuvius in his teens -- before they became a commercial phenomenon -- Fish spends the next twenty years working deadbeat jobs and wishing things happened differently. Naturally, he gets a second chance: When the opportunity rolls around to drum for his nephew's high school, Fish goes for it. Ageism and slapstick humor ensue.

While not exactly a classic, The Rocker proves Wilson has the charisma to carry a movie. The script could use some polishing, but Wilson manages to play a completely dysfunctional human being without ever becoming an annoyance. It's a testament to his skill as an actor with calculated timing. The humor emerges from the naturalism of his performances, which make you believe in the outlandish characters he portrays. In a conversation with Cinematical recently, Wilson elaborated on his particular strategies as his career advances, reminisced about his days as a New York theater actor, and shed some light on a few upcoming projects.

(We're re-posting our CineVegas review of The Rocker to coincide with the film's theatrical release today)

I like the premise of The Rocker so much -- middle-aged wannabe rock star insinuates himself into his teenage nephew's band -- that I'm inclined to go easy on it solely out of good will. It's likable enough, a lightweight rock 'n' roll comedy punctuated by several belly laughs -- but those laughs are all in response to the one-liners, and mostly from one minor character (more on that later). The story, the central personalities, and the uninspired slapstick are bland.

The title wannabe is Robert "Fish" Fishman, played by Rainn Wilson (of TV's The Office) in his first major film role. Fish was the drummer for Vesuvius, a mid-'80s heavy-metal band, but was kicked out on the eve of the group's success. Now, two decades later, Vesuvius is huge and Fish is a bitter has-been (or, rather, never-was).

In one of the more inspired viral marketing campaigns that I've come across, um, today, actor Rainn Wilson has apparently taken his co-star from TV's 'The Office,' the lovely and talented Jenna Fischer, hostage in his trunk until his new film, The Rocker, opens to the tune of $18.7 million next week.

Mind you, that's $18.7 million in American dollars, as specified on the initial MySpace ransom post (the Fox-owned MySpace, natch), and Fischer has been promised a peach smoothie for her troubles. Any and all further updates are to be posted instead on the aptly-named blog Free Jenna Now! (the maxim of which is "See a great movie. Save a good person.").

Eric D. Snider reviewed the film at CineVegas, and I can pretty much echo every sentiment he shared then regarding its supposed greatness. Regardless, The Rocker opens on Wednesday, August 20th, while Rainn's trunk opens on Monday, August 25th.

[Thanks to regular reader WW for the tip.]

Maybe I missed something, but since when did releasing films on a Wednesday become a commonplace strategy? I know, for years and years, several titles have opened mid-week, albeit typically on a handful of NY/LA screens or to capitalize on a holiday weekend.

But due to some recent moves, every Wednesday in August now has at least one wide release opening on it instead of Friday. On the 6th, we have Pineapple Express and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2; the 13th brings us Tropic Thunder; the 20th, The Rocker; and then Traitor on the 27th.

There are at least three other wide releases on the last three Fridays of the month, but I see no distinct point at which a two-day head start would make any great deal of difference (although I presume that Pineapple still wanted to have seven days on Tropic instead of five when it comes to their similar target demographic).

Was there a holiday I overlooked somewhere? Is it now cooler for kids to go to the movies on a school night once classes are back in session? Do you guys have any theories, or will you still wait for the weekend to catch any of these regardless?

Twentieth Century Fox has changed the release date on the Rainn Wilson comedy The Rocker again, but I think this move might be for the best. Maybe. We'll see. What do I know?

The flick, in which Wilson plays a former rock drummer who gets a new chance at stardom when he joins his teenage nephew's band, was originally slated for Friday, Aug. 1. Then they decided a Wednesday was better, so it became July 30. But now Fox has announced that it's been pushed back three weeks to Wednesday, Aug. 20.

Why the shuffle? Fox didn't say, but I would guess it's to avoid the raucous comedies Step Brothers (due on July 25), Pineapple Express (Aug. 8), and Tropic Thunder (Aug. 13). A July 30 release would have put it in the middle of a comedy war zone, and The Rocker -- which got so-so reviews (including my own) when it played at CineVegas and doesn't have nearly as much star power as those three -- would have gotten trampled. It would have been a PG-13 David against three R-rated Goliaths.

By Aug. 20, Step Brothers and Pineapple Express will have already done most of their box office damage, leaving Tropic Thunder as the only big-name comedy competing with The Rocker. I think it's smart to stick with a Wednesday, too, as three more comedies -- The House Bunny, Hamlet 2, and The Longshots -- open on Friday, Aug. 22.

What do you think? Is there too much comedy competition between now and Labor Day? Or are the films different enough that they won't be stealing each other's audiences?

I like the premise of The Rocker so much -- middle-aged wannabe rock star insinuates himself into his teenage nephew's band -- that I'm inclined to go easy on it solely out of good will. It's likable enough, a lightweight rock 'n' roll comedy punctuated by several belly laughs -- but those laughs are all in response to the one-liners, and mostly from one minor character (more on that later). The story, the central personalities, and the uninspired slapstick are bland.

The title wannabe is Robert "Fish" Fishman, played by Rainn Wilson (of TV's The Office) in his first major film role. Fish was the drummer for Vesuvius, a mid-'80s heavy-metal band, but was kicked out on the eve of the group's success. Now, two decades later, Vesuvius is huge and Fish is a bitter has-been (or, rather, never-was).

He gets a new shot at glory, though, as drummer of A.D.D., an emo band whose keyboard player is Fish's chubby nephew Matt (Josh Gad). The lead singer and guitarist, sullen teen Curtis (Teddy Geiger), and bassist Amelia (Emma Stone) are reluctant, but Fish is actually really good on the kit, and he swears he can find them a gig.

Kidding? Yes, that's right, as in kids, young 'uns, rug rats. This week on Trailer Park, we're scoping out previews of movies that are for or about the kiddies.

The Rocker
Kid is a relative term, but the teens populating this comedy are kids from where I'm sitting. Probably best known for playing Dwight on NBC's The Office, Rainn Wilson stars as a washed up 80s rocker who was booted out of a succesful band right before they hit it big. Kind of like Pete Best but with spandex and big hair. His teenage nephew's band is playing at the prom and they need him to fill in. The gig goes well and Wilson's character ends up touring with the band. There's a definite hint of School of Rock, but Wilson is so appealing in the role that I've chosen to overlook that and the groin injury joke (a hokey device that is often a deal breaker for me). Here's what Erik thought of the trailer.

For those who've been waiting to see Rainn Wilson absolutely rock out in The Rocker, a brand new trailer for the film has just premiered over at Yahoo. Originally, this flick was supposed to hit screens about a month or so ago, but it's since been pushed to August 1 -- and, from the looks of this trailer, I can totally see this being that late-summer comedy hit that builds buzz and ends up doing quite well at the box office. Or maybe I'm just a sucker for 80's drummers who get a chance to win back a piece of stardom by playing their nephew's high school prom.

The Rocker follows Robert "Fish" Fishman (Wilson), a once successful drummer with a prominent '80s hair band who was tossed to the side right when their popularity began to grow. Now, years later, when Fish's nephew needs an extra drummer for his prom band, that dude from The Office steps up to the plate and takes these kids on one helluva wild ride. Check out the trailer and let us know what you think. Can Rainn Wilson hold down the fort on this one all on his own?

*Exclusive official photo from The Rocker, courtesy of Fox Atomic

After Christina Applegate and Tom McNulty sat down with me, the vibe I started to get was that I had been taken care of, which was true. I had asked several times for Emma Stone, but I wasn't going to push too hard for it after everyone had treated me so nicely. So for the rest of the night, I found an out-of-the-way place to sit and just watched as Rainn and Christina filmed a long scene where they walked from one end of the main set to the other, in front of an enormous green-screen, which I think will have some kind of music video footage when it's finalized. The scene revolves around Fish trying to get Kim to reveal the name of her old punk band (see the Christina interview in Part III) and she ends up revealing it -- Scream Weavers. They also eventually get into a little on-the-spot contest to see who can name the most rock bands with a place in their name: Kansas, Berlin, Bay City Rollers, etc.

At one point, while I was watching all of this, Emma, who had to be present to do background work, came over to where I was to relax between takes, but I resisted the urge to hit her up for an on-the-spot interview. Nothing else memorable happened for the next couple of hours, except for an AD telling me I was standing too close to the shooting area at one point. (Also, I forgot to mention this: earlier in the night, I had requested an interview with director Peter Cattaneo, but instead of granting it, he invited me to come over and tape-record him being interviewed by a TV station! Obviously I'm not printing that.) Anyway, around 6:00am on Sunday morning, I stumbled out into the morning light, flagged down my driver and rode back to the hotel. Overall, I had managed to bag three good interviews, and had been able to take a lot of notes, so I was pretty happy. The next Tuesday, back home in Jersey, I got an unexpected bonus -- a phone call from Emma.

ES: Hi, how're you doing?

RS: Pretty good. Sorry I didn't get to meet you Saturday night. You're probably wrapped on the whole movie by now, right?

ES: No, no, I'm actually leaving for work in like, twenty minutes. We're gonna wrap on the 31st, I think, next week.

RS: So why don't you give me some details on how your character fits into the story? I still don't know much about her.

ES: Well, she's the bass player for the band. You know the general outline of the movie. Rainn joins the high-school band and I'm in that band. And basically, Teddy, who is the lead singer and guitarist and then Josh plays the keyboards, and he's Fish's -- Rainn's character's -- nephew, and I'm just a friend of theirs that plays bass in the band.

RS: Does your character have, like, a love interest or anything?

ES: Yeah, she's kind of into Curtis, Teddy's character, and that's kind of an underlying current. Their definitely not dating or together in the movie, it's just kind of ... I think they have an attraction to each other kind of, throughout the plot-line.

RS: Was there one thing in particular that got you interested in this part?

I did this set visit back in July, but when I spoke with producer Tom McNulty on the set, he ended up revealing something that Fox wanted kept under wraps, so after the visit, the studio embargoed me from revealing the news he gave me until August 31. So here it is -- drumroll please. This film, which has been described over and over as a 'Pete Best story,' actually has former Beatle Pete Best! He's in the movie! Tom also revealed that 30 Rock's Jane Krakowski has joined the film's cast. He also announced that a quasi-sequel to The Rocker, based on the film's fictional hair band Vesuvius, is moving forward with Will Arnett attached. A writer is currently being hired and Rainn Wilson will presumably take part. Interviewing Tom was a lot of fun -- the guy was a ball of fire, ready to talk about anything, and even though he talked a million miles a minute, he still gave us a half-hour interview that covers a lot. I've cut the whole thing down a bit, but you still get the big picture.

What kind of rock n' roll are you celebrating with this movie? What's the vibe?

TM: The vibe is big, full-on heavy metal kind of rock. Not so much glam rock. I mean, the guys are definitely, you know, Aerosmith, but there is definitely some Whitesnake, Poison, Ratt, Pantera, Winger, Cinderella ...what other bands do we reference. The band he's kicked out of, Vesuvius, when we began to kind of figure it out and write the songs for it, we did a lot of research watching Heavy Metal Parking Lot and you don't really have to do characters for those guys, because they pretty much ... there was a documentary and they talked about how these lead singers ... 98 percent of the audience were heterosexual dudes and these guys are wearing tight spandex pants and thrusting their crotch into a male audience. So it's this weird celebration of, like, male masculinity, but the guys are full-on lipstick, blush, rouge, women's wigs basically. Look at Motley Crue, for God's sakes, or Van Halen or Poison. It was all dudes and no one ever thought about the idea of, like, this is very into homosexuality. Glam rock was one step away from that.

So looking at it at the time, in context, it didn't really seem weird, but when you step back and look at it objectively, it's like 'Holy shit, this was really a bizarre time in American music, you know? It was about theatricality. I think that -- this is just one man's opinion -- the advent of MTV and literally, suddenly, your image and what you look like and actually making a video became an important part of being a successful band is probably why it went from 0 to 60 overnight. Those guys were just ridiculous. It became about showmanship, and 'can you top this?' and, you know, in terms of the hair and lip-stick. Tommy Lee resembles nothing of what he looked like. Look at Nikki Sixx and those guys -- that Girls, Girls, Girls tour was ridiculous. So that's the basis of the band he was kicked out of. In the movie, the band has become as big as, say, Aerosmith, in terms of the world domination that they have. The idea is Aerosmith or The Stones, a band like that. They don't have the integrity that those bands have, but they definitely have the kind of vibe and popularity.

After the quick interview with Rainn, it seemed that anything I got beyond that on this set visit, interview-wise, might very well be gravy. It was around two or so in the morning, and the crew was frantically committed to setting up a long, complicated shot to be done in front of a green-screen on the main set. So I resigned myself to going back to the main set and watching the set-up. After a while, however, the unit publicist came to find me again, to tell me that the film's producer, Tom McNulty, was interested in doing an interview. Myself and the IGN reporter were quickly rounded up and taken to a tiny office adjacent to the set, and Tom followed. After speaking with Tom for half an hour, the door burst open and Christina Applegate unexpectedly walked in, ready to be interviewed. She was clearly tired from the insane schedule the film was following -- even I was tired, and I had only been exposed to it for one night -- so Christina, if you're reading this, thanks for taking the time.

How about these night shoots?

CA: The first week, by the end of the week, we had started normal days and then it just ... by the end of the week it had gotten so late, and because we're shooting six days weeks they haven't been able to get us turned back around. So it just keeps getting later and later. Probably in about a week it will be back around

When was the last time this happened to you?

CA: Never. In fact, I've never even heard of this happening, to be honest with you. It's not something that happens a lot.

So your character is the mom of one of the garage-band kids -- does she have any other connection to rock n' roll? A former groupie, maybe?

CA: No, well, Kim was actually the lead singer of a punk band when she was 17 years old, and that's when she got pregnant with Curtis, who is the lead singer in the band, ADD. So she's kind of a groovy chick.

Do you get to use any of your musical chops in this film?

CA: No, I get to play in a rock band, which is the new, better version -- I get to play guitar. I'm quite good at that, because I have guitar gear at home, so I came into this with guitar experience under my belt. I used to be really into karaoke revolution, but now it's all about Guitar Hero. Now they're gonna give us the rock band thing, which is cool, because it's a full band. With drums and a singer and bass.

*Exclusive official photo from The Rocker, courtesy of Fox Atomic.

The first cast member to acknowledge the presence of the online press guys that night was Rainn Wilson, who eventually agreed to sit down with us for an interview in the cafeteria area in between takes. He was a perfectly nice, pleasant guy to talk to, but you could tell that he was a little tired from the switch to night shoots, and he was very much in a business frame of mind. In fact, I'm sure I have the tenacity of the unit publicist to thank for the interview happening at all: despite the tough, pressurized circumstances of the shoot, she went out of her way to try to help me get what I came for that night. Here's the interview with Rainn in full, with some questions being asked by myself and some from the IGN journalist. It will give you a good idea of the basic plot and characters of The Rocker, what kind of tone the filmmakers are shooting for, and also what you can expect from Rainn in the future, project-wise.

The plot of the film has been kept pretty much under wraps -- we only know what's been in the trades. What can you say about it?

RW: It's a movie about a heavy metal drummer who gets kicked out of a rock band right before they become, like quadruple-platinum huge. Like the drummer of Aerosmith getting kicked out before Walk This Way, or something like that. And it kind of haunts him for his whole life. The movie does take place in the present day, and he gets another chance at fame, another chance at redemption, by joining his high-school nephew's garage-rock band. So, you know, it's kind of a fish out of water story and my character is named Fish, so it's perfect for a fish-out-of-water-story.

What kind of comedy is it? Is it like Bob Odenkirk-style absurdist comedy, or more straight-ahead?

RW: No, it's a pretty straight-ahead rock n' roll comedy. You know, it would be like a highly-comedic version of an Almost Famous, or something like that, maybe. I play ... he's a crazy, man-out-of-time, you know? He lives to rock, but his idea of that is trapped somewhere between Def Leppard and AC/DC. So he gets this new opportunity, he gets a new lease on life, a chance to live his dream, and in the course of it, he meets Christina Applegate.

Not bad.

RW: Not so bad.

So are you going to actually reference those old bands? Should we expect cameos from, like, Def Leppard or Winger?

RW: We talked about that, having heavy metal cameos but we didn't go with that. But we do see the old band that fired him. Vesuvius is their name, and we got a great cast for that. Will Arnett, Fred Armisen and Bradley Cooper are playing those guys.