By Simon de Bruyn
Box office reporting for the Easter long weekend has revealed that Adam Elliot’s much anticipated $8 million feature Mary and Max took in $296,000 over the five days since Thursday, according to MPDAA stats.
UPDATE: Click here for an update on the opening week tally for Mary and Max, which spiked up by $75,000 over Tuesday and Wednesday this week.
Over the traditional weekend period (Thursday to Sunday), Mary and Max took $217,176, marking the second highest opening weekend for an Australian film this year – behind the $242,000 taken by Love the Beast over the March 14 weekend.
Eight new films in cinemas opened last Thursday alongside Mary and Max, although the claymation feature had the benefit of many preview screenings with Elliot, and producer Melanie Coombs, travelling across the country with the film in the weeks leading up to release.
The screen average for Mary and Max was on par with other openers, with the film taking an average of $4,432 across 49 screens, compared to $4,728 for The Boat That Rocked (293 screens), $4,423 for Race to Witch Mountain (289 screens) and $4,809 for Dragonball Evolution (192 screens) – three other films which opened last Thursday.
Meanwhile, another arthouse title, Elegy, took a screen average of $7,967 across 22 screens for a total of $175,000.
Two other Australian films are chugging along slowly. Love the Beast is still in cinemas after five weeks, taking a further $13,000 over the long weekend for a total of $746,416. The Combination is still in cinemas after seven weeks, starting to open in regional cinemas over Easter, and taking $10,000 for a total of $716,521.
Closed for Winter will be the next local film to test the waters. The film opens in cinemas on April 23 and will be distributed by Omnilab.
|
WIR
|
Film
|
Budget (est)
|
Distributor
|
Opening w/e
|
Box Office
|
|
5
|
Love the Beast
|
|
Madman
|
$241,982
|
$746,416
|
|
7
|
The Combination
|
$1,320,000
|
AFS
|
$188,054
|
$716,521
|
|
1
|
Mary and Max
|
$8,000,000
|
Icon
|
$217,176
|
$301,964
|
|
2
|
Two Fists, One Heart
|
$8,500,000
|
Disney
|
$96,999
|
$233,286
|
|
4
|
Beautiful
|
$2,000,000
|
Kojo/Jump Street
|
$22,406
|
$49,932
|
|
1
|
Salvation
|
|
Hopscotch
|
$2,262
|
$3,182
|
WIR = Weeks in Release. Sources: Inside Film and MPDAA