Hollywood comedy Bad Neighbours ruled for the second consecutive weekend at the Australian box-office while two Australian films struggled to find audiences.
Despite favourable reviews and copious publicity, Craig Monahan’s redemptive drama Healing had a modest debut, taking $81,000 at 38 screens.
Including previews, the film starring Don Hany and Hugo Weaving has grossed $96,000. Hany plays a criminal serving a long stretch for murder who is rehabilitated by a program caring for wounded eagles and other big birds in a minimum-security prison farm.
Sophie Hyde’s 52 Tuesdays fell by 26%, fetching $17,500 in its second weekend on 10 screens and $80,000 thus far. Both films generated positive reviews and wide media coverage, underlining that sometimes that isn't enough to attract cinemagoers.
B.O. takings totalled a shade over $11 million, down from the previous weekend’s $11.4 million, according to Rentrak, but only two titles clocked more than $1 million.
Neighbours, which stars Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne as a young couple with a new-born baby who are forced to live next to a fraternity house led by Zac Efron, opened with a gangbusters $4.7 million. With the previous weekend’s previews, the Universal comedy has amassed $7.3 million.
Females keep flocking to Fox’s The Other Woman, which dipped by 31% to $1.5 million in its fourth frame, propelling the total to $17.1 million, increasing its lead over Sony’s under-performing The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise of Electro, which has $14.8 million.
The Grand Budapest Hotel is proving remarkably resilient, taking $826,000 in its fifth and advancing to $9.7 million.
None of the other newcomers made much of an impression. It was lean pickings for culinary comedy Chef, in which director/ writer Jon Favreau plays a high-end Los Angeles chef whose rise to gastronomic stardom is ended by a snooty restaurant critic (Oliver Platt). It opened with $826,000 on an ill-advisedly wide 261 screens.
Compare that with the US where the film, which features Robert Downey, Jr., Scarlett Johansson, John Leguizamo, Bobby Cannavale and Dustin Hoffman, platformed at six cinemas and made a hearty $US205,000.
Belle, a costume drama based on the true story of an illegitimate mixed race woman woman who was raised to be a lady in late-18th-century English high society, launched with $298,000 on 99 screens. Including previews the film featuring Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Tom Wilkinson, Emily Watson and Aussie Sam Reid has collected $354,000.
Richard Ayoade’s The Double, an absurdist drama about the trials of an office drone (Jesse Eisenberg) and the colleague and neighbour who is the woman of his dreams (Mia Wasikowska), bowed with an OK $12,500 at two screens.
A Castle In Italy, directed by and starring Valeria Bruni Tedeschi as an ex-actress struggling to hold her once wealthy family together and keep them connected to their beautiful estate in Piedmonte, brought in $26,000 at nine cinemas, and $81,000 with festival screenings and previews.
Seduced and Abandoned, a quasi-documentary which follows writer-director James Toback and actor Alec Baldwin as they go to the Cannes Film Festival to pitch a contemporary version of Last Tango In Paris set in Iraq, took $2,400 at one cinema.
WEEKEND BOX OFFICE May 8-11
|
|
Title |
Week/ Screens |
Box Office |
% +- |
Total
|
|
1 |
Bad Neighbours |
1/393 |
$4,723,486 |
NA |
$7,346,522 |
|
2 |
The Other Woman |
4/333 |
1,553,418 |
-31 |
17,104,687 |
|
3 |
Chef |
1/261 |
826,651 |
NA |
840,039 |
|
4 |
The Grand Budapest Hotel |
5/256 |
825,396 |
-23 |
9,751,873 |
|
5 |
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 |
4/358 |
784,555 |
-42 |
14,804,411 |
|
6 |
The LEGO Movie |
6/272 |
380,054 |
-51 |
28,977,578 |
|
7 |
Divergent |
5/170 |
316,726 |
-41 |
10,223,633 |
|
8 |
Belle |
1/99 |
297,838 |
NA |
354,238 |
|
9 |
Captain America 2 |
6/280 |
260,106 |
-49 |
19,613,647 |
|
10 |
Transcendence |
3/216 |
253,681 |
-52 |
2,753,856 |
Source: Motion Picture Distributors Association of Australia