What movies ruled the box office 20 years ago in August 2006?

Tender father/son boinding between male cows in Barnyard (2006)

Come, step into this theoretical time machine. Let's go back to August 2006 real quickly. 20 years ago, Fergie's "London Bridge" was beginning to dominate the Billboard charts. The Rodney Atkins ditty "If You're Going Through Hell (Before the Devil Even Knows)" was in the middle of a four-week stint atop the Hot Country Songs Billboard chart. The New York Yankees won a pivotal baseball game against the Los Angeles Angels. And then there were the movies. Summer 2006 grossed $3.75 billion, a significant increase above summer 2005's $3.53 billion haul, but below the grosses of summers 2003 and 2004. August 2006, the month of Fergie, Rodney Atkins, and the Yankees, was closing out that season with a few final box office hits. When the dust cleared, August 2006 grossed $761.56 million, below the August grosses from 2001 to 2004, but ahead of August 2005 (when The Dukes of Hazzard was the biggest movie of the month).

With July's mega-hit Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest finally finishing its three-week number one run in July 2006, it was time for some other movies to top the box office. One of those titles, which topped the North American box office for half of August 2006's four weekends, was one of Christopher Nolan's favorite features: Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. Talladega Nights was both the biggest grosser in August 2006 (contributing a mighty $130.67 million to the month's gross) and by far the highest grossing new release dropped in this month (it was the only August 2006 newcomer to gross $100+ million in North America). 

In hindsight, Talladega Nights was the pinnacle of Will Ferrell's box office clout as a leading man. For starters, it's the biggest non-Barbie/Elf/Austin Powers live-action movie he's ever appeared in. It was also the most prolific and successful of Ferrell's obsession with clashing wacky leading men with sports (a fascination that even continued with his 2026 Netflix golf show The Hawk). Both Ferrell's box office pull and creative interests were so intense at this point in time that he could get a NASCAR comedy to just under $150 million domestically. Talladega Nights was also by far the biggest live-action American movie appearance by Sacha Baron Cohen, who'd go on to headline a little film called Borat a few months later.

What other newcomers were making lots of money this month? World Trade Center grossed $57.88 million in the month and eventually grossed $70.27 million domestically. Right on its toes was another Paramount Pictures title, Barnyard. Not much to say about that Oliver Stone directorial effort beyond "LYLE! LYLE! TURN ON THE TV, THEY HIT THE PENTAGON!" This CG-animated comedy made $72.63 million domestically. That haul would've been disastrous for a new CG animated film just two years earlier, when these major studio CG movies (save for Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within) were basically guaranteed to make $126+ million in North America. However, this field had gotten especially crowded in the year leading up to Barnyard's debut. Titles like Valiant, Doogal, The Ant Bully, and The Wild had all cratered. 

Audiences no longer found celebrity-voiced CG animals farting and trading pop culture references a must-see event. In that respect, Barnyard was a respectable, albeit far from phenomenal, box office performer. Seven days after Barnyard introduced trans male icon Otis the Cow to audiences, Disney's Touchstone Pictures launched the first Step Up movie. Both a new franchise and Channing Tatum's leading man career were suddenly born in the middle of all those sweat-inducing death movies. Speaking of Disney, Dead Man's Chest was so mammoth at the box office that it still made $48.008 million domestically during August 2006, well over a month after its July 2006 debut where it set a new domestic opening weekend record. 

The seventh biggest movie of the month, meanwhile, was one of the more infamous motion pictures to drop during this month. Snakes on a Plane was preceded by a deluge of internet hype about how a movie with this silly title and Samuel L. Jackson was actually headed to theaters. I distinctly remember internet jokes around the film being inescapable. Even the Over the Hedge newspaper comic devoted several daily comic strips to skewering Snakes on a Plane. Alas, all that pre-release chatter didn't translate to motherfucking big ticket sales for those motherfucking snakes on this Monday-to-Friday plane. Snakes on a Plane only grossed $34.02 million, a disappointing sum given both all the hype and its $34 million budget.

It's always the films you least suspect that make lots of moolah at the box office. Case in point: Little Miss Sunshine. Though it didn't have a 2006 San Diego Comic-Con panel or tons of online press like Snakes on a Plane, this indie darling expanded into wide release during August 2006 after debuting in a handful of theaters on July 26. It eventually grossed $59.89 million in North America, an outstanding sum for a low-budget indie movie. Turns out a quality movie was more important than a gimmicky title or making the biggest movie nerd sites of 2006 happy.

Other notable new releases dropping in August 2006 included The Descent (which Lionsgate launched to a solid $26.02 million domestic cume), Justin Long's Accepted (which topped out at $23.51 million, a sum Accepted co-star Jonah Hill would surpass just over Superbad's opening weekend one year later), the Tim Allen flop Zoom (featuring multiple Smash Mouth songs, including a cursed cover of David Bowie's "Under Pressure"), and, in the indie scene, Half Nelson, the feature that would garner Ryan Gosling his first Oscar nominination.

Compared to other early 2000s Augusts, August 2006 had a hearty monster hit in the form of Talladega Nights that could easily stand next to other early 2000s August hits like xXx, American Pie 2, and The 40-Year-Old-Virgin. As late as 2019 with Good Boys, August is often a strong month to launch one last comedy and Talladega Nights proved that nicely. Past Augusts, though, launched multiple $100+ million domestic performers, like August 2002 housing the $227.96 million grosser Signs and xXx or the trio of $100+ million grossers dominating August 2003. With no other domestic newcomers grossing $75+ million, let alone $100+ million, August 2006 couldn't help but fall short of shattering any records.

Still, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby did become the seventh biggest movie of summer 2006 while the month contributed about 20% to summer 2006's $3.75 billion domestic gross. In hindsight, the most interesting thing about August 2006 is how it's the last August before Hollywood regularly began launching tentpole sequels in this month. Starting with August 2007's The Bourne Ultimatum, Hollywood began using August as a launchpad for titles like Rise of the Planet of the Apes, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor and, eventually, 2014's Guardians of the Galaxy. No wonder only one* pre-2020 August would sink below $800 million domestically after 2006. Hollywood infused August with a tentpoles-only approach that bolstered the box office. In other words, Hollywood molded post-2006 August slates around Ricky Bobby's "if you're not first, your'e last" mentality. 

Now, before we depart the theoretical time machine, let's all enjoy a video of Kevin James eating hay to promote the release of Barnyard.

* = August 2017 was the one post-2006 August to make less than $800 million domestically. What a dreadful month that was, with the month closing out with what was, at the time, the lowest-grossing domestic box office weekend in 16 years.