Garden gnomes who fall in love with each other and a brainy thriller with plenty of twists and turns opened at number one and two respectively at the Aussie box office on the weekend.
Disney’s Gnomeo and Juliet, based on William Shakespeare’s classic play, had a solid opening in its first week taking in almost $2 million from 222 screens.
James McAvoy (X-Men: First Class) and Emily Blunt (The Devil Wears Prada) voice the two main characters in the family-fun film, while Michael Caine (The Dark Knight), Ashley Jensen (Extras), Patrick Stewart (Star Trek: The Next Generation), Hulk Hogan (WWE), Ozzy Osbourne and Stephen Merchant (The Office) round out some of the many strong supporting voices. Check out the featurette here.
Liam Neeson thriller Unknown, which opened at number one in the US making $US25.6 million, also did well Down Under, taking almost $1.7 million, with a screen average of $8485 (200 screens).
Chick flick No Strings Attached, which opened at number one last week, raked in another $1.44 million across 254 screens, while The King’s Speech still continues to dominate – generating a further $1.13 million from 222 screens in its ninth week. Its total in Australia is now a phenomenal $24.2 million.
The UK production, with Australian connections, only had a 5 per cent slip from last week’s result.
Fox’s Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son – the third in the Martin Lawrence-led franchise – took out fifth spot, taking in $913,684 from 185 screens, earning a screen average of $4939.
Australian 3D thriller Sanctum still remains to struggle at the local box office, taking $353,481 in its third week. It is still screening across 249 screens and had a screen average of just $1420, despite plenty of promotion from Hollywood legend James Cameron (Avatar, Titanic, Terminator, Aliens).
In the US, the Richard Roxburgh-led film has generated $US22.3 million.
Source: MPDAA