It was probably young women swooning over Zac Efron, rather than good luck, that saw The Lucky One top the charts on the weekend, grossing $2.28 million from 242 screens over the four days up to and including Sunday.
This result for Adelaide-based director Scott Hicks’ latest drama about a US Marine who seeks out a woman whose photograph he found on the battlefield, equated to a highly impressive $9,424 screen average.
Distributor Roadshow was quick to issue a media release pointing out that none of the the many other films (The Notebook, Nights in Rodanthe, Dear John, A Walk to Remember, Message in a Bottle, The Last Song) adapted from the novels of Nicholas Sparks had done nearly so well.
After topping the charts last weekend – it’s first in cinemas — the Universal film Battleship’s weekend gross dropped 45 per cent to $2.16 million but it was still the second most popular film in cinemas.
Two other Universal films lost traction by more than 40 per cent: American Pie: Reunion, in third position ($1,516,242 in its third week) and Dr Seuss’ The Lorax in fifth position ($1,448,939 in its fourth week). This pair of films was separated by Roadshow’s The Hunger Games ($1,469,485 in its fifth week), which managed to hold on to the same spot in the chart as last week.
The Fox film The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel ($1,174,892), a good example of content that suits the older cinemagoer, fell only 23 per cent compared to the previous weekend. It was its fifth weekend in cinemas. The next most popular film was also from Fox: Titanic 3D ($976,260), now in its third week in cinemas.
Australian films at the box office 2012