Jocelyn Moorhouse’s The Dressmaker rules the Australian B.O. after earning $560,000 on Thursday plus $416,000 in previews and the Adelaide Film Festival screening.
The dramedy starring Kate Winslet, Judy Davis, Liam Hemsworth and Sarah Snook is well placed to collect upwards of $2.5 million in its first four days.
The opening day was bigger than those of Mao’s Last Dancer ($514,000), Saving Mr Banks ($494,000 in school holidays), Bran Nue Dae ($403,000) and The Sapphires ($323,000).
Given good word-of-mouth, the Universal Pictures release will easily surpass $10 million as it is faces no serious competition until Spectre (November 12) and the final edition of The Hunger Games (November 19).
As IF had reported, next week The Dressmaker will catapult Australian films’ total grosses this year past $70 million, an all-time record in dollars, beating the previous high of $63.4 million in 2001.
This week the film received 12 nominations at the AACTA Awards including best film (producer Sue Maslin), best director, lead actress (Winslet), supporting actress (Snook and Davis), supporting actor (Hugo Weaving), cinematographer (Don McAlpine) and editor (Jill Bilcock).