British critics adored Pride, the comedy-drama based on the true story of the gay Londoners who rallied to support Welsh miners in their confrontation with Margaret Thatcher in 1984, and some were moved to tears.
Audiences in the UK were rather less enthused as the film starring Bill Nighy, Paddy Considine, Dominic West and Imelda Staunton has pocketed a modest $US6.2 million in seven weeks, tracking more like a Made in Dagenham than a Calendar Girls or Billy Elliot.
The reaction seems similar here judging by the Matthew Warchus-directed film’s $522,000 debut on 130 screens, and $595,00 with festival screenings and previews.
Distributor eOne emailed exhibitors this morning asking them to maintain screens in hopes that word-of-mouth will kick in this weekend, particularly among the target audience of mature females.
It was another soft weekend as takings dropped by 9% to $9 million according to Rentrak’s estimates. Year-to-date ticket sales have generated $896 million, trailing the corresponding period last year by 1.6%, but there is every chance the deficit will be wiped out this month by Interstellar and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1.
Fans of Brad Pitt and bloody WW2 dramas ensured a solid second lap for Fury, which eased by 26% to $1.9 million, propelling its takings to nearly $5.5 million.
David Fincher’s Gone Girl continues to defy B.O. gravity, collecting $1.7 million in its fifth weekend (down 21%), amassing $21.8 million to date.
Keanu Reeves’ return to action hero seems to work well enough in John Wick as the revenge thriller about a grieving widower who is drawn into a deadly gang opened with $1.1 million.
Adaptations of Nicholas Sparks' novels usually draw big audiences but not so with The Best of Me as the romantic drama starring Michelle Monaghan as an unhappy Louisiana housewife-and-mother and James Marsden as her long-lost teen love took a lousy $749,000 on 222 screens, and a slightly more respectable $932,000 with sneaks.
Former Home and Away regular Aussie Luke Bracey, who made his Hollywood debut in G.I. Joe: Retaliation, plays the younger version of Marsden’s oil rigger.
Jeremy Renner’s turn in Kill the Messenger as a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who stumbles across a plot by gangs to smuggle cocaine into the US and use the profits to arm rebels fighting in Nicaragua, allegedly with the CIA’s approval, impressed some critics but not cinemagoers, pulling in $119,000 on 54 screens.
The latest casualty of the unforgiving art house market is Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet, the tale of a Montana whiz kid whose perpetual motion machine gains the attention of the Smithsonian, which rang up $8,500 on six screens.
WEEKEND BOX OFFICE October 30-Nov 2
|
|
Title |
Week/ Screens |
Box Office |
% +- |
Total
|
|
1 |
Fury |
2/334 |
$1,897,625 |
-26 |
$5,465,692 |
|
2 |
Gone Girl |
5/375 |
1,736,728 |
-21 |
21,802,513 |
|
3 |
John Wick |
1/177 |
1,092,605 |
NA |
1,092,605 |
|
4 |
The Best of Me |
1/222 |
748,703 |
NA |
931,698 |
|
5 |
This Is Where I Leave You |
2/235 |
534,877 |
-36 |
1,784,214 |
|
6 |
Pride |
1/130 |
521,580 |
NA |
595,198 |
|
7 |
Tammy |
3/207 |
365,625 |
-44 |
2,629,108 |
|
8 |
A Walk Among the Tombstones |
3/201 |
235,535 |
-56 |
2,497,737 |
|
9 |
Annabelle |
5/143 |
203,432 |
-42 |
5,856,358 |
|
10 |
Dracula Untold |
5/101 |
163,440 |
-47 |
5,639,638 |
Source: Motion Picture Distributors Association of Australia