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Sanctum continues to sink at the Aussie Box Office

Australian 3D thriller Sanctum continues to sink at the local box office, falling to seventh place after only two weeks.

The Universal film, supported by key Hollywood director James Cameron, took $845,049 on the weekend from 249 screens, giving it a screen average of $3394. This was down 47 per cent on opening weekend.

It’s a less-than-expected result for the film, which stars Richard Roxburgh, especially after the massive promotion from the Avatar director, both in the US and Down Under.

According to Box Office Mojo, the film has taken $US17.5 million in America.

Opening just before Valentine's Day, No Strings Attached made it to the top of the local box office, raking in $2.2 million across 253 screens, for an average of $8765.

The Paramount motion picture, starring Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman, is directed by Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters II, Twins, Kindergarten Cop) and tells the story of two friends who have an agreement to have casual sex without falling in love with each other.

Danny Boyle’s biographical adventure film 127 Hours, which tells the story of real-life mountain climber Aron Ralston, made almost $1.2 million from 181 screens in its opening weekend, while The King’s Speech continues to be a hit at the local box office, taking in almost $1.2 million as well in its eighth week.


Source: MPDAA

  1. It’s been playing to empty theatres, in the biggest auditoriums with expensive new 3D systems that need more content like Avatar to justify their expensive purchase! I will be surprised if it’s still screening anywhere after this Thursday.

  2. I miss the Australian centric film chart. We can get this macro analysis from Schembri or Urban, give us back the real insight from last year!!

  3. Hey Sam

    why don’t you show your local industry a little support rather than leaping at the soonest possible opportunity to shoot it down my reporting the REAL story. Sanctum to date has made $62,856,785. These figures are reported by Box Office Mojo http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=sanctum.htm

    Jeremy Kay in Screen Daily reports:
    Sanctum swallows up $9.1m to push overseas tally to $38m

    22 February, 2011 | By Jeremy Kay

    The cave diving adventure held its head high among the overseas studio titans at the weekend and grossed an estimated $9.1m to boost the running total to $37.5m.

    New York-based FilmNation licensed territories and said it expected the latest tally from 2,028 screens would most likely climb to $40m after CIS, Portugal, the Middle East, Colombia and Chile reported.

    The film opened well in Hong Kong on $1.3m from 36 screens including three days of previews and launched in second place in Sweden on $558,000 from 72.

    In a pair of notable second weekend results Sanctum added $973,000 in Italy from 330 for $3.4m and $1.1m in Spain from 282 for $3.2m.

    Australia produced a further $375,000 in the third weekend from 193 to rank 11th on $3.6m and Brazil’s tally leapt by $407,000 from 116 to $4.9m. The UK has generated $3.1m.

    Sanctum is scheduled to open this week in France, Mexico, Taiwan and Denmark.

    As Jeremy Kay reports the film hasn’t yet opened in some major overseas markets.

    So Sam, next time you want to rush to fire a salvo at some locally made drama perhaps you should hold that fire for a little. If not to support the local industry then at least to give the impression that you know what you’re talking about.

    Jules O’Loughlin ACS
    Director of Photography
    Sanctum

  4. Go Jules !!!!

    Visually the film lived up to expectations – great job by you, Nick McCallum, & David Booth amongst many others 🙂

  5. Hey Jules lighten up! The point is that the film sucks (i’ll get to this later).
    Are you really going to pull out the tired old “support the aussie film industry” schtick everyone is tired of? Especially for a film that has been universally panned by every critic in the known universe. (Cinemascore C-, Rotten Tomato rating 33%)
    Sanctum was beaten by The Roommate on Superbowl weekend. Roomate earned 13million while Sanctum only got a measly 7 mill (with less advertising too!).
    Sanctum has under pefomed in every conceivable way. No wonder it has gone from screening on 2787 screen to just 382. The Roommate meanwhile is still screening on at least 1,726 screens (down from 2354 screens). Total domestic gross (US) for Sanctum is 23.3million. Total domestic for The Roommate: 36.8 million and will continue to outshine Sanctum (and it doesn’t have James Cameron’s name anywhere on it!), Remember both films opened on the same day.

    To date The Roommate has only opened in 1 overseas locale but i guess they didn’t have a whole bunch of cash to throw on enough prints for a worldwide release like Sanctum did). Once the initial US screening is done the prints will head to the next territory, where no doubt, it will continue to out perform Sanctum. if i was a financer of film i know which film i would rather have my money in. Sure The Roommate sucks but it cost 14million less than Sanctum. Even though Sanctum has the 40% producer offset i’d still rather have my money on The Roommate.

    So if you want top judge a film’s worth in dollar values then Sanctum is the lame cousin to other films opening in the same economic climate. If you want to judge it on artistic terms well……just take a look at the reviews! Even David and Margaret agreed the film was an aussie stinker.

    The only positive thing reviewers say about this film is that some of the underwater cinematography is nice (when it isn’t ruined by the poor use of 3D of course). I say hats of to Simon Christidis for his amazing underwater cinematography 🙂
    Simon Bell is quite right when he states:
    “It’s a less-than-expected result for the film, which stars Richard Roxburgh, especially after the massive promotion from the Avatar director, both in the US and Down Under.”
    this film had MASSIVE potential but, lets face it, you guys didn’t achieve more than 10% of it. Better luck next time mate.

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