Fending off the stiff stoner challenge of Pineapple Express, The Dark Knight made it four weeks at the top over the weekend, padding its record-setting haul by a further $26 million. That's under Express's five-day $40.4 million opening weekend, but only counting Friday-to-Monday (when the Seth Rogen comedy tallied $22.4 million) gives Knight its edge. The Bale-Ledger freight train surged past Shrek 2 to become the third highest grossing film of all time in the States, with $441.5 million, and Star Wars' $461 million total in its sights. The Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants 2 mimicked Express's midweek assault but only managed $19.7 million in its opening five days, while Mamma Mia! streaked past $100 million over the weekend and The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor wheezed its way to another $16.1 million, a 60 percent plummet from the previous weekend. More at Variety

Bernie Mac Dies At 50

Actor-comedian Bernie Mac died early Saturday at the age of 50 from complications due to pneumonia in Chicago's Northwestern hospital. This followed reports earlier in the week from his publicist that the seriousness of Mac's illness were being overstated and that he was expected to make a full recovery. The crossover comedian, who appeared in films such as Transformers, the Ocean's trilogy, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle and Bad Santa as well his Fox TV series The Bernie Mac Show, had battled an inflammatory lung disease known as sarcoidosis in recent years although his publicist says it wasn't linked to his pneumonia. Born and raised on Chicago's South Side, Mac had spent most of his life performing. Just last year he told David Letterman that he planned to take it easy from now on so he could try to enjoy the fruits of his success: "I'm going to still do my producing, my films, but I want to enjoy my life a little bit. I missed a lot of things, you know." Sad that he didn't get much of a chance to fulfil those wishes.

Tropic Thunder Boycott Mooted

Tropic Thunder opens this Wednesday but disabilities groups are expected to announce a boycott today over what they view as out-and-out ridicule of the intellectually disabled in Ben Stiller's spoof. What's really got groups like Special Olympics in a tizz is Thunder's film stars-playing-film stars dropping the word "retard" like it's going out of fashion in reference to Stiller's action-lunk character's Oscar-minded movie vehicle Simple Jack. Leading the anti-Thunder charge is Special Olympics chairman Timothy P. Shriver, who fumed to the New York Times, "the most disappointing thing, the most incredible thing, is that nobody caught it." We'd say DreamWorks caught that one early but decided to go ahead and face the wrath. The studio issued a statement describing Thunder as "an R-rated comedy that satirizes Hollywood and its excesses and makes its point by featuring inappropriate and over-the-top characters in ridiculous situations." Yeah, disabilities groups, Hollywood's laughing so why can't you!

Women In Hollywood

USA Today has rounded up some of Hollywood's key female players -- including producers Nancy Juvonen and Denise DiNovi and filmmakers Diane English (The Women) and Gina Prince-Bythewood (The Secret Life Of Bees) -- for a sort of state-of-the-nation address for women in Hollywood. We know that the industry's a boy's club -- what's new there? -- but it does sound like it's easier being a disabled person in the vicinity of a Ben Stiller movie than a woman trying to get a movie off the ground in Hollywood... More at USA Today