Sony’s Brad Pitt-starrer Bullet Train has derailed Thor: Love and Thunder from the top of the box office.
The film rolled into the station with a healthy $3.2 million from 605 screens. With Pitt starring alongside Bad Bunny, Joey King and Sandra Bullock, punters were clearly attracted to the film’s star power despite middling reviews deeming it “brainless” and “confusing”. The action thriller has just a 54 per cent critical approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but audience scores sit at 78 per cent.
Directed by David Leitch, Bullet Train sees Pitt as an unlucky assassin, Ladybug, whose latest mission sees him collide with lethal adversaries from around the globe, all while on the world’s fastest train in Japan.
In the US, the film opened to $US32.4 million, with global grosses at $US62.5 million. The reported production budget is $US90 million.
“Bullet Train opened very much in line with our estimates, and actually slightly ahead of, pro-rata, to the US,” Village Cinemas national programming manager Geoff Chard tells IF.
“Based on the film’s $3.3 million opening here in Australia, it should comfortably surpass $10 million.”
However, not all local exhibitors found success with the film, with Kieren Dell, CEO of regional NSW and Queensland’s Majestic Cinemas observing: “MA action films with lots of violence don’t play as well to our regional demographics, meaning in some of our sites it still came second to Crawdads, which is our top performer of the last 2.5 weeks overall and is continuing to do well for us as it fits our demographics a lot better.”
Similarly, David Simpson of South Australia’s Wallis Cinemas found it disappointing. “It was in line with our lower expectations however we were wanting a better result.”
Bullet Train accounted for around a third of all trading nationally across the weekend. Numero figures put the top 20 titles at $9.3 million, down 5 per cent on the previous.
The only other new release to crack the top 10 was Tolly Movies’ Indian period romance Sita Ramam, in tenth position. It made $79,435 from just 38 screens; an average of $2,090.
Kiwi title Juniper, directed by Matthew J. Saville (not to be confused with the Australian director) landed in 13th position, earning $65,986 from 91 screens for Transmission Films.
While the box office is down on where it has been over the noisy last few months, Chard is happy to see that a diversity of films are still playing well in the market.
“It’s good to see most of the other titles in release at the moment (Where the Crawdads Sing, Top Gun: Maverick, Elvis, Minions: The Rise of Gru) hold really well, only dropping 30 per cent on average. There really is something for every audience at the moment, and we’re expanding the range even further this week with the release of Jordan Peele’s Nope,” he says.
The weekend following Nope‘s release will see the launch of Aussie film Bosch & Rockit (Madman) and Emma Thompson-starrer Good Luck Leo Grande (Reset Collective/Roadshow), directed by Australian Sophie Hyde.
Thompson has been in Australia promoting the film, including appearing in live Q&A at the Hayden Orpheum Picture Palace in Sydney, selling out 1,000 seats across two cinemas.
“Absolutely brilliant night of events that our audience won’t forget anytime soon,” says Orpheum GM Alex Temesvari.
In terms of holdovers, Love and Thunder dipped 45 per cent in its fifth frame to $1.2 million, a result that sees the Disney/Marvel title crack $41.7 million.
Just behind was Sony’s Where the Crawdads Sing at $1.1 million. Now in its third week, the Daisy Edgar-Jones led drama, based on Delia Owens bestseller of the same name, has made $7.4 million overall.
Top Gun: Maverick dipped below $1 million for the first time after 11 weekends at the box office, earning $881,780. As IF has reported, the film is the third-highest grossing to ever be released in Australia, with its gross now at $86.6 million. Globally, the film has now grossed $US1.3 billion.
Warner Bros.’ Elvis also fell below $1 million for the first time, with seventh weekend receipts tallying $841,282. At $30.1 million gross, the Baz Luhrmann film has now overtaken Lion to become the fifth highest grossing Australian film of all time (not adjusting for inflation).
Minions: The Rise of Gru earned $700,901 for Universal in its seventh, climbing to $41.2 million – making it the highest grossing film in the Despicable Me franchise. Stablemate The Black Phone fell 41 per cent in its third to $577,162, with the Blumhouse horror now at $4.3 million.
Mindblowing Films Chhalla Mud Ke Nahi Aaya dropped 65 per cent in its sophomore round to $179,368, with the Amrinder Gill period drama now on $881,939.
Jurassic World: Dominion now stands at $35.7 million for Universal after a ninth weekend result of $82,675.
In terms of Aussie titles, Maslow Entertainment’s Lee Kernaghan: Boy From the Bush took a tumble in its second weekend, dropping 74 per cent to $39,566, with its cume at $221,047.