Sonic the Hedgehog 2 has powered back to the top of the box office, toppling last weekend’s number one, The Lost City, and well ahead of new additions The Northman and The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.
According to Numero figures through to Sunday, Paramount’s animated sequel collected another $2.9 million to bring its tally to $17.6 million after four weekends.
Just behind was the Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum action rom-com, with the difference between the top two totalling less than $2,000. A Paramount stablemate, The Lost City now stands at $9.3 million.
Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore rounded out the top three, taking in $2.2 million in its third frame to advance to $14.8 million for Warner Bros.
Universal’s The Bad Guys retained its number four ranking with an additional $2.1 bringing the animation to $11.8 million. Based on the book series created by Australian author Aaron Blabey, the film also had a good weekend internationally, topping the US box office with a $US24 million debut.
Of the new releases, Robert Eggers’ Viking epic The Northman premiered in fifth at $1.1 million from 244 screens for a healthy screen average of $4,695, while Studiocanal’s Nicolas Cage starrer The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent was in sixth, only managing $622,000 from 322 screens, resulting in an average of $2,032.
Starring the likes of Nicole Kidman, Alexander Skarsgard, and Anya Taylor-Joy, Universal’s The Northman follows a young Viking prince on his quest to avenge his father’s murder.
There is a distinctly lighter tone to Tom Gormican’s comedy The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, in which Cage channels his iconic characters as Nick Cage, finding himself caught between a superfan (Pedro Pascal) and a CIA agent (Tiffany Haddish).
Further down, Madman’s royal documentary Elizabeth: A Portrait in Parts, just made it into the top 20, garnering $37,000 from 110 screens in its first weekend for an average of just $339.
Overall, the top 20 titles came to $14.2 million, 9 per cent down on the Easter weekend total of $15.7 million, but up from $12.8 million taken the weekend before.
Majestic Cinemas CEO Kieren Dell told IF it was holdovers that had managed to continue the momentum.
“We had a good weekend to finish off the NSW school holidays, but it was the older movies in Sonic, Bad Guys, Lost City, and Fantastic Beasts that continued to deliver for most sites,” he said.
“Unfortunately, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent and Elizabeth were very soft as new releases, and The Northman proved to be of more interest to older, arthouse audiences, and so did reasonably well in sites that veer that way, but less so in more mainstream sites.”
For Hayden Orpheum Picture Palace general manager Alex Temesvari, the weekend just gone proved even more profitable than Easter.
“Trading was extremely healthy and a massive improvement over our Easter trading,” he said.
“Everything Everywhere remained our number one film in week two which is a pleasant surprise as we initially thought it might not connect with our core audience, while The Lost City came in at number two.
“Both films actually saw an uptick in business from their opening week which is great to see.
“We also found additional success this weekend with a variety of special event screenings and live events which helped bump up our trading result even further.”
Roadshow’s Everything Everywhere All at Once earned $605,858 in its sophomore weekend, advancing to $1.6 million, coming ahead of Forum Films’ Hindi version of Indian assassin film K.G.F: Chapter 2, also in its second frame – now sits on $2.3 million after receipts of $336,508.
In the ninth position, WB’s The Batman inched closer to $40 million with $328,808, while Meanwhile Sony’s Morbius completed the top ten with $257,104 to move to $6.4 million.