Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman were terrific as a long-married couple who overcame adversity in The Railway Man but Australian audiences aren’t buying their latest on-screen pairing.
Before I Go to Sleep casts Kidman as a 40-year-old woman who wakes up every day with a blank memory. Firth is her husband who tells her they’ve been married for 14 years and Mark Strong is her neuro-psychologist who encourages her to keep a daily video diary so she can help rebuild her life.
The thriller directed by Rowan Joffe, adapted from S. J. Watson’s best-selling novel, may not have sent audiences to sleep but relatively few bothered to turn up as the film fetched $418,000 on a very wide 194 screens.
Nationwide takings dropped by 16% to $9.7 million as none of the other newcomers much enthused cinemagoers, according to Rentrak’s weekend estimates. Distributors say the market is soft and especially shallow below the top three titles.
David Fincher’s Gone Girl accounted for nearly 30% of the weekend business, raking in $3.1 million in its third frame (off 24%), propelling its earnings to a lucrative $16.1 million.
Liam Neeson’s latest turn as a middle-aged action hero in Scott Frank’s A Walk Among the Tombstones rang up a mediocre $1.13 million. Maybe after Non-Stop and two editions of Taken (with a third on the way) audiences are tiring of that formula.
At one point Warner Bros. intended to release Ben Falcone’s Tammy, a crass comedy starring Melissa McCarthy as a fast food worker who embarks on a road trip with her alcoholic grandmother (Susan Sarandon) direct-to-DVD in Australia, then had a change of heart. Only the studio knows whether that was a smart decision in light of the $1.1 million debut on 210 screens.
The James Wan-produced horror movie Annabelle continues to outperform the genre, advancing to $5 million after scoring $683,000 in its third outing, so $6 million is as good as in the bag.
The tale of a possessed doll cost $US6.7 million and has grossed more than $166 million at cinemas worldwide. "What a huge profit margin," Wan remarked on social media today.
The Judge, the father-son dramedy starring Robert Duvall and Robert Downey Jr, dropped by 35% to $665,000, collaring a mediocre $2.1 million in 11 days.
As IF has reported, Julius Avery's Son of a Gun launched with a disastrous $69,000 on 53 screens, including previews.
John Doe: Vigilante, a violent Australian thriller about an anti-hero who attempts to rid the community of criminals, directed by Kel Dolen and featuring Battlestar Galactica’s Jamie Bamber, took $658 at three cinemas.
In the troubled art house sector, Force Majeure, writer-director Ruben Östlund’s psychological thriller about a Swedish family who are on a skiing holiday in the French Alps when an avalanche strikes, bowed with a middling $50,000 on 14 screens.
WEEKEND BOX OFFICE October 16-19
|
|
Title |
Week/ Screens |
Box Office |
% +- |
Total
|
|
1 |
Gone Girl |
3/420 |
$3,130,594 |
-24 |
$16,110,218 |
|
2 |
A Walk Among the Tombstones |
1/238 |
1,124,695 |
NA |
1,133,641 |
|
3 |
Tammy |
1/210 |
1,088,439 |
NA |
1,090,647 |
|
4 |
Annabelle |
3/168 |
683,420 |
-45 |
5,011,298 |
|
5 |
The Judge |
2/285 |
664,704 |
-35 |
2,160,926 |
|
6 |
Dracula Untold |
3/213 |
612,732 |
-44 |
4,851,883 |
|
7 |
The Maze Runner |
5/221 |
505,274 |
-50 |
15,318,632 |
|
8 |
Before I Go to Sleep |
1/194 |
418,074 |
NA |
418,074 |
|
9 |
The Equalizer |
4/151 |
299,065 |
-54 |
6,292,500 |
|
10 |
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles |
6/165 |
166,997 |
-67 |
17,583,557 |
Source: Motion Picture Distributors Association of Australia