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Monster opening for Godzilla

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