Tim Winton’s The Turning drew sizable audiences at Australian cinemas last weekend, earning $215,552 at 16 screens, running for two sessions a day at most locations.
That’s an impressive average of $13,472 per screen for the three-hour film produced by Robert Connolly and Maggie Miles. The cumulative total is $345,383 including advance screenings and the proceeds from the Melbourne International Film Festival world premiere and CinefestOz.
The opening weekend marked the best screen average of all films in release except for an IMAX title, and it was highest-grossing film in 10 cinemas.
“That’s a great figure, exactly what we had hoped for,” said Connolly, whose CinemaPlus co-distributes the film with Madman Entertainment. The partners are now looking to add screens in the third week, including locations in regional Western Australia and Queensland.
The Adam Sandler/Chris Rock/Kevin James buddy comedy Grown Ups 2 topped the box-office, nabbing $3 million.
Takings overall jumped by 39% to $14.5 million, boosted by the school holidays, although none of the kids films is taking big money.
DreamWorks Animation’s Turbo raked in $2.2 million in its second weekend, propelling the total to $5.75 million. In its third outing The Smurfs 2 fetched $1.9 million, boosting its tally to $7.5 million.
Disney’s made-for-DVD comedy Planes opened in Victoria, South Australia, WA, the ACT and the Northern Territory, scoring a mediocre $1.38 million. That brings the nationwide total to $3 million in 11 days.
Runner Runner, a thriller starring Justin Timberlake as a Princeton student who is cheated out of a large sum of money by an online poker site and sets off to Costa Rica to confront Ben Affleck as the scheme’s mastermind, opened with a tepid $1.26 million.
Where are all the One Direction fans? For whatever reason they are not buying many tickets to One Direction: This is Us, which staggered through its second weekend.
In the specialty market, Stories We Tell, Canadian actress/filmmaker Sarah Polley’s intimate portrait of her troubled parents, launched at 16 screens, taking a solid $98,000. With previews and festival screenings, the total is $195,000.
Roadshow showed little faith in Lovelace after it bombed in the US, releasing the film starring Amanda Seyfried as Linda Boreman, who became infamous as porn star Linda Lovelace, on 19 screens for a paltry $39,000.
WEEKEND BOX OFFICE Sept 26-29
|
|
Title |
Week/ Screens |
Box Office |
% +- |
Total
|
|
1 |
Grown Ups 2 |
1/281 |
$3,030,194 |
NA |
$3,030,194 |
|
2 |
Turbo |
2/327 |
2,224,609 |
+48 |
5,747,166 |
|
3 |
The Smurfs 2 |
3/369 |
1,885,161 |
+52 |
7,531,373 |
|
4 |
Planes |
2/432 |
1,382,559 |
+83 |
2,999,392 |
|
5 |
Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters |
2/350 |
1,280,193 |
-9 |
3,786,573 |
|
6 |
Runner Runner |
1/235 |
1,264,778 |
NA |
1,264,778 |
|
7 |
Blue Jasmine |
3/128 |
708,560 |
-24 |
3,688,953 |
|
8 |
White House Down |
4/227 |
587,098 |
-37 |
6,243,587 |
|
9 |
One Direction: This is Us |
2/295 |
425,264 |
-52 |
1,911,781 |
|
10 |
Now You See Me |
8/110 |
363,723 |
-33 |
16,479,878 |
Source: Motion Picture Distributors Association of Australia