After setting an opening day record last Wednesday, Disney's The Avengers has gone on to post the eighth biggest opening weekend of all time.
The film now ranks behind both installments of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, The Twilight Saga: New Moon, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, The Two Towers, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Star Wars: Episode III on the list of the Australian box office's most successful opening weekends.
The Avengers took $13,288,146 across 621 screens, equating to a screen average of $21,398, placing it in front of The Simpsons Movie ($13,230,894) and Shrek 2 ($13,158,161) and just behind Star Wars prequel Revenge of the Sith ($13,350,781).
Written and directed by Joss Whedon, The Avengers features an ensemble of superheroes (including Aussie Chris Hemsworth as the god Thor) teaming up to save the Earth from the threat of an invading alien army. The film's total gross now stands at $19.3 million.
After topping the charts on its opening weekend, Adelaide-based director Scott Hick's new film The Lucky One dropped 47 per cent to $1.2 million. It was one of two offerings from Roadshow in the top five. Dystopian thriller The Hunger Games saw a drop of 54 per cent in its sixth weekend of release. The film has now grossed $29.8 million in total.
Fox's The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel ($792,979) dropped 33 per cent, while Universal's American Pie: Reunion ($679,206) lost 55 per cent.
Kieran Darcy-Smith's directorial debut Wish You Were Here ranked ninth at the box office on its debut weekend. The Aquarius Films production, which is distributed by Hopscotch, opened on 38 screens and took $279,538, resulting in a healthy screen average of $7,356 – a figure only beaten by The Avengers.
Australian films at the box office in 2012