Now we’re seeing why there’s been so much nattering about the so-called controversies in Tropic Thunder: Robert Downey in blackface, use of the word “retard,” and so forth. Nikki Finke:

Reliable sources are telling me that very early numbers show the Wednesday opening for Ben Stiller’s Tropic Thunder from DreamWorks/Paramount were just around $7 million from 3,319 North American theaters. (But another R-rated comedy, Sony’s Pineapple Express, did $12.1M a week ago.)

In other words, Tropic Thunder, which had Robert Downey Jr., the biggest actor of the summer; Ben Stiller; and Jack Black, was outgrossed by almost 60 percent by a stoner comedy with a couple of sub-level actors. DreamWorks knew it had a dud on its hands and did anything it could to get the thing some attention.

The principals of DreamWorks are involved in an acrimonious split with Paramount right now and doesn’t want to be seen producing flops ; it’s hard to believe the studio wasn’t behind the somewhat convoluted argument about Tropic Thunder’s box-office prospects in that NYT story Hitsville wrote about two weeks ago (”Tropic Thunder: A case study in PR-friendly journalism“). The story described the film as a “parting gift” from DreamWorks to Paramount:

The feature, the lede story in the arts section, is a case study in how a mainstream piece of journalism can be working a not-so-subtle agenda for one side in a dispute. Consider this passage about the film’s prospects, right after the stuff about the “parting gift”:

The movie clearly has hit potential. Directed by Mr. Stiller, it has an ensemble cast also including Jack Black, Matthew McConaughey, Steve Coogan and Nick Nolte, not to mention Tom Cruise, in a raucous cameo as a vulgar studio chief.

But Paramount executives also face the delicate task of selling what may be the raunchiest comedy yet in a summer that has seen more than its share. […]

If they fall short, a production budget of about $90 million and tens of millions of dollars in marketing money are at risk. A soft performance would also compound the embarrassment of “The Love Guru,” the Mike Myers raunchfest that flopped when Paramount released it in June.

In other words, DreamWorks has handed Paramount a sure hit, which the studio may screw up, just as it did The Love Guru … and if it does… it’s an embarrassment for Paramount.

This seems crazily biased to me. Why does DreamWorks get credit for doing a Ben Stiller movie in the first place? Night at the Museum made nearly $600 million worldwide; isn’t Stiller doing DreamWorks, a failed studio, the favor? And if it’s a flop, wouldn’t that mean the thing wasn’t that much of a gift in the first place?

You can see how DreamWorks-friendly that story is in retrospect. Finke, too, casts the box office results as nicely as she can:

So what are its weekend prospects? Well, the studio fully anticipated the soft Wednesday opening and still believes Tropic Thunder can make $40 million in its first 5 days. “We will play to a little older audience than Pineapple Express, so we should do better on Saturday and get to about the same box office,” one insider tells me. But one problem is that, unlike Judd Apatow movies, Tropic Thunder has underweighted wanna-see among the gals: there’s only moderate interest among women under 25, and zilch interest among women under 25. Another worry is that this was a very expensive laugher, with a negative cost of $100+M.

If the NYT $90M production budget is correct, the negative cost (including marketing expenditures) is actually $120M or $130M. Pineapple Express, by contrast, cost $27M, according to Box Office Guru. In those terms, the problem with the movie is not what the NYT said it was (selling a raunchy comedy, as if that was a negative) but rather that DreamWorks had spent too much money on the film.

And finally, while some Apatow movies have a sweet side and a love interest, Express, with an almost all-male cast and a plot involving pot smoking and violence and not much else, isn’t one of them. So even that doesn’t explain Tropic Thunder’s box office problems.