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Second Best Marigold Hotel not second best

The Second Best Marigold Hotel has topped the Australian box office chart over the weekend, shooting up from its debut position of number five.

The sequel to 2011’s surprise hit The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel has proved popular with Aussie audiences, raking in $2,631,599 in its second week and bringing its Aus box office total to $8,624,346.

Con artist caper Focus wasn't far behind, raking in a cool $2,619,751 and $2,662,971 with previews.

The film, penned and directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, stars Will Smith as con artist Nicky and Australia’s Margot Robbie as his protégé Jess. After the two become romantically involved, Nicky reluctantly breaks up with Jess, only to bump into years later when she is every bit the conning master mind that he is.

It’s another feather in Robbie’s cap who, after bursting onto our screens in The Wolf of Wall Street, now has a slew of high-calibre projects in the works, including playing opposite Alexander Skarsgård in the upcoming Tarzan as well has having landed the role of Harley Quinn in David Ayer’s Suicide Squad.

Kingsman: The Secret Service is still going strong in its fifth week, scooping $1,026,922 over 234 screens, according to Rentrak estimates. The film, also distributed by Fox, has garnered $15,433,552 at the Australian box office so far.

Controversial sex drama Fifty Shades of Grey slipped almost 50% in its fourth week, taking in $996,150 over 268 screens. The film adaptation of E. L. James’ smash hit novel of the same name, distributed in Australia by Universal, has so far raked up $22,135,147.

The widely-panned Seventh Son had a dismal opening weekend, taking only $720,780 over 157 screens. The film, which stars Academy Award winners Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore, as well as Game of Thrones star Kit Harington and Son of a Gun's Alicia Vikander, has had a troublesome ride to the big screen, which saw its release date pushed back an entire year.

The plot follows young Thomas (Ben Barnes) who is apprenticed to the local Spook to learn to fight evil spirits, amongst them the evil Mother Malkin (Moore).

Critics have been largely unimpressed with the action/fantasy, which was directed by Sergey Bodrov and distributed by Universal.

Variety labelled the film as “an over-designed, under-conceived fantasy epic in which even topnotch contributors can't get the chemistry right,” while The Hollywood Reporter called it “son of a dud.”

It currently holds a 14% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Another disappointing opening weekend result came from Fox’s Unfinished Business, which drew $653,493 over 205 screens. The comedy stars Vince Vaughan as a local business owner who takes his two associates (James Franco and Tom Wilkinson) to Europe in an attempt to close the deal of their lives.

Once again the film was not well received by critics, with The Hollywood Reporter advising viewers to “take your business elsewhere” while The Guardian scathed “Vince Vaughn has done it again – kicking the putrefying corpse of feel-bad scrotal comedy around our screens with the dead-eyed stare of the fiscally medicated.”

Roadshow’s Jupiter Ascending slipped 49% in its third week of release, taking $544,661 across 214 screens. The sci-fi from Andy and Lana Wachowski has so far amassed $4,544,310 at the Aus box office.

American Sniper is still rallying in its seventh week of release, slipping 49% to a weekend box office of $276,153 over 168 screens. The war bio-pic, starring Bradley Cooper as one of the most deadly snipers of all time, has taken a total of $18,755,650 at the Aus box office so far, and is distributed by Roadshow.

Paramount’s sci-fi Project Almanac took $259,757 over 207 screens in its second week, bringing its box office total to $4,165,650; while Universal’s The Theory of Everything amassed $223,504 over 137 screens in week number five. Based on the life of Professor Stephen Hawking, the romantic biopic has so far taken $5,804,566 at the Australian box office, with actor Eddie Redmayne also taking out the Best Actor Academy Award for his portrayal of the physicist.