The Godzilla reboot cast a long shadow at Australian cinemas last weekend but some of the holdovers held remarkably well, testament to the market’s elasticity when moviegoers are offered a wide range of appealing titles.
Directed by Brit Gareth Edwards, who got the gig on the strength of his little-seen 2010 debut film Monsters, Godzilla grabbed $6.7 million.
While that didn’t match, pro-rata, the whopping $93.1 million 3-day US debut, the disaster movie featuring Bryan Cranston, Juliette Binoche, Elizabeth Olsen, Ken Watanabe and the CGI-created creature did post the biggest opening of the year in Oz, beating Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier.
After the worldwide weekend take of close to $200 million, Warner Bros and Legendary Pictures are already planning a Godzilla sequel.
Takings shot up by 28% to $14.1 million although the top three titles accounted for $10.8 million, according to Rentrak's estimates. Bad Neighbours, the gross-out comedy starring Seth Rogen, Rose Byrne and Zac Efron, eased by 34% to $3.1 million, scoring nearly $12 million in 11 days.
Female-centred revenge comedy The Other Woman is showing very long legs, fetching $1 million in its fifth outing, propelling the total to a hefty $18.4 million.
Jon Favreau’s amiable culinary comedy Chef slipped by 26% to $608,000 after a mediocre opening which did not justify the 261-screen release, whipping up $1.75 million thus far.
Belle, the drama based on the true story of a mixed-race woman who was raised to be a lady in late 18th Century English high society, collected $289,000 in its second weekend (off just 3%), bringing the total to a fair $794,000.
Positive word-of -mouth kicked in for Craig Monahan’s redemptive drama Healing, which took $73,000 in its second frame, down 10%, elevating its tally to $205,000.
Audiences who’ve seen Sophie Hyde’s 52 Tuesdays seem satisfied judging by the gender-bending drama’s 10% drop in its third weekend, making $16,000 on 15 screens and advancing to $105,000.
However the art-house sector continues to be a tough environment for new releases, despite often laudatory reviews.The critics raved about The Broken Circle Breakdown, a Belgian melodrama about a banjo player who falls in love with a vivacious tattoo artist, but audiences weren’t much moved, resulting in a $35,000 debut on 16 screens and $40,000 with previews.
Child’s Pose, a Romanian drama about an upper-class Bucharest architect who is determined to keep her deadbeat son out of jail after a deadly car crash, opened with a modest $34,000 on 10 screens and $99,000 with festival screenings.
Few people were intrigued to figure out the meaning of idiosyncratic director Terry Gilliam’s The Zero Theorem, which scraped up $14,000 at five cinemas. For the record, it stars Christoph Waltz as a deeply dissatisfied guy who lives in a disused church while he awaits a phone call that he believes will reveal the meaning of existence.
WEEKEND BOX OFFICE May 15-18
|
|
Title |
Week/ Screens |
Box Office |
% +- |
Total
|
|
1 |
Godzilla |
1/498 |
$6,767,119 |
NA |
$6,767,119 |
|
2 |
Bad Neighbours |
2/397 |
3,125,511 |
-34 |
11,948,419 |
|
3 |
The Other Woman |
5/302 |
1,000,294 |
-36 |
18,431,919 |
|
4 |
Chef |
2/267 |
608,035 |
-26 |
1,750,241 |
|
5 |
The Grand Budapest Hotel |
6/256 |
549,332 |
-34 |
10,557,868 |
|
6 |
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 |
5/240 |
474,526 |
-40 |
15,503,894 |
|
7 |
Belle |
2/100 |
289,257 |
-3 |
793,532 |
|
8 |
The LEGO Movie |
7/241 |
268,601 |
-29 |
29,330,454 |
|
9 |
Divergent |
6/108 |
182,423 |
-42 |
10,491,550 |
|
10 |
Captain America 2 |
7/84 |
136,773 |
-47 |
19,832, 996 |
Source: Motion Picture Distributors Association of Australia