Australian cinemagoers preferred watching a chick flick about vengeful females to the latest adventures of Spider-Man in a surprising result last weekend.
Less surprising was the mediocre opening of Johnny Depp’s sci-fi thriller Transcendence, which was only marginally better than its dud debut in the US the previous weekend.
Box-office takings stayed strong with a haul of $18.6 million, off just 10% on the Easter weekend, according to Rentrak’s estimates.
The curiosity of the frame was 3D Naked Ambition, a raunchy Hong Kong comedy about a frustrated sex writer whose popularity is waning in the era of free internet porn, which scored a lusty $121,000 on 15 screens.
The top title was The Other Woman, the only wide release targeted at females. The Nick Cassavetes-directed comedy which follows three women (Cameron Diaz, Leslie Mann and Kate Upton) as they plot revenge against a philandering husband/lover (Nikolai Coster-Waldau), grabbed $4.3 million in its second weekend, up 8%, which brings the total to $11.2 million.
“We need more of these female-targeted films,” said one exhibitor, who noted Fox’s film is “going gangbusters.”
Sony’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise of Electro tumbled by 39% to nearly $3.3 million, raking in $11.4 million in 11 days. At that rate the sequel may be hard pressed to match the predecessor, which wound up earning $17.4 million in 2012.
The LEGO Movie continued on its merry way, whistling up $2.7 million in its fourth outing while easing by 17%, propelling its tally to $27.1 million.
The clear favourite among adult audiences, Fox's The Grand Budapest Hotel boosted its takings fractionally to $1.6 million after adding 50 screens in its third sojourn, collecting $6.8 million so far.
Transcendence, the Johnny Depp/Morgan Freeman/Rebecca Hall starrer which marked the directing debut of Chris Nolan’s cinematographer Wally Pfister, fetched $1.37 million.
US pundits mostly blamed the $10.8 million US debut on Pfister being out of his depth in wrangling a $100 million movie with a complex storyline and noted that Depp, mostly seen here as a computer image on a computer screen, didn’t open the film in the way that highly paid stars are supposed to.
Marvel’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier declined by 26% to $1.3 million in its fourth orbit, amassing $18.3 million.
Jatt James Bond, a Hindi romantic thriller directed by Rohit Jugraj, is no 007, launching with $99,000 on 30 screens.
The Crossing, Julian Harvey’s feature documentary which tracks two Aussie adventurers who tried to drag their home-made kayaks more than 1,000 km across a remote island in the Arctic, opened on three screens in limited sessions, making $3,900, and $8,300 including prior screenings.
Aaron Wilson's debut feature, WWII drama Canopy, drummed up $13,360 on 11 screens. However distributor Odin's Eye Entertainment says word of mouth is very good – which, in a film with so few words spoken throughout, is pleasantly ironic.
WEEKEND BOX OFFICE April 24-27
|
|
Title |
Week/ Screens |
Box Office |
% +- |
Total
|
|
1 |
The Other Woman |
2/310 |
$4,345,633 |
+8 |
$11,234,595 |
|
2 |
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 |
2/525 |
3,285,059 |
-39 |
11,462,841 |
|
3 |
The LEGO Movie |
4/402 |
2,692,416 |
-17 |
27,157,750 |
|
4 |
The Grand Budapest Hotel |
3/175 |
1,611,727 |
+1 |
6,848,973 |
|
5 |
Transcendence |
1/238 |
1,377,621 |
NA |
1,377,621 |
|
6 |
Captain America 2 |
4/440 |
1, 326,500 |
-26 |
18,300,200 |
|
7 |
Divergent |
3/245 |
1,257,597 |
-20 |
8,871,092 |
|
8 |
Mr Peabody & Sherman |
5/271 |
970,529 |
-3 |
12,386,274 |
|
9 |
Muppets Most Wanted |
3/250 |
645,609 |
-1 |
3,877,277 |
|
10 |
Noah |
5/164 |
310,556 |
-48 |
12,122,036 |
Source: Motion Picture Distributors Association of Australia