Australian Box Office Report (14th - 17th April 2005)

[FilmBuff84]

Here's the Top 20 films sitting at the Australian Box Office for the weekend Thursday the 14th to Sunday the 17th of April 2005.



Pacifier too strong for Interpreter

(1) (1) THE PACIFIER
(2) (Debut) THE INTERPRETER
(3) (3) ROBOTS
(4) (Debut) THE AMITYVILLE HORROR
(5) (2) SAHARA
(6) (4) GUESS WHO
(7) (Debut) HOSTAGE
(8) (5) MISS CONGENIALITY 2: ARMED AND FABULOUS
(9) (11) SON OF THE MASK
(10) (7) HITCH
(11) (6) THE RING TWO
(12) (9) LADIES IN LAVENDER
(13) (10) MILLION DOLLAR BABY
(14) (12) THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU
(15) (19) FIVE CHILDREN AND IT
(16) (8) ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13
(17) (16) ARE WE THERE YET?
(18) (13) HATING ALISON ASHLEY
(19) (14) BEING JULIA
(20) (17) MARIA FULL OF GRACE

The final week of school holidays kept all the family aimed entertainment in check as the three major new releases, which were all vying for relatively the same audience, fell short. Vin Diesel proves he doesn't need action fare like XXX or The Fast and the Furious to bring in the bucks as THE PACIFIER kept up appearances with a further 16% increase and a $1,731,101 intake, pushing the family comedy to a neat $7,461,559 (US $85,794,109), edging it closer to his aforementioned action outings. Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn scored the highest new release of the week with their political thriller THE INTERPRETER slipping in at #2 with $1,659,483 (US $19,080,981). ROBOTS gave up the #1 spot two weeks ago, but isn't suffering too much, as it saw a rise of 19% over the weekend, adding a further $1,514,883 to its total, which now sits at $11,063,429 (US $127,208,944), now the second highest grossing film of the year. Ryan Reynolds and his buffed up bod scared up $998,518 (US $11,481,107) for THE AMITYVILLE HORROR, placing it at #4. The horror genre isn't as lucrative down under as it is in the states, and it is generally a particular kind of horror film that makes the big bucks here, but its launch is pretty decent considering the time period and competition. The adventure of SAHARA saw a minor 30% drop to hold in the top 5 in its second week of release. The Matthew McConaughey flick can call $3,020,794 (US $34,733,536) its own so far. Ashton Kutcher's 'Meet The Parents' type comedy GUESS WHO? had a good hold in its second week, only losing 16% interest, and is up to a good $2,388,585 (US $27,464,303), around half of what his last major outing The Butterfly Effect ended up with last year. Bruce Willis' return to action form in HOSTAGE scored him an underwhelming $580,334 (US $6,672,766) at #7. Hopefully things will bode better for him in Sin City over here. The less said about SON OF THE MASK the better, but somehow it stormed ahead 62% to make its first appearance in the Top 10. The Jamie Kennedy lead sequel has managed $976,757 (US $11,230,896), somehow. 2005's big money maker HITCH rounded out the Top 10 this week, down only 39% from last week. The Will Smith romantic comedy has pulled in a spectacular $13,790,387 (US $158,563,910) after 7 weeks in release. It's the highest grossing film so far this year, the 141st highest gorssing film of all time in Australia, and the 5th highest for Smith, behind last years Shark Tale ($15.1m). The Eva Mendes accompanied film will enjoy being the #1 film for the year for a few more weeks, until mid-May when the Star Wars fever will kick in, but come the years end, Hitch should hold well overall. Keeping intact with the other family aimed films, FIVE CHILDREN AND IT saw a 92% rise, taking the fantasy flick to $415,289 (US $4,775,054) overall. Ice Cube also had a bit of a boost this week with ARE WE THERE YET? rising 6% in its likely last week or two of release. 6 weeks on and it has accumulated $2,874,403 (US $33,050,311). Maybe as Vin Diesel goes from action to family, it might be more successful for Cube with XXX2 than Disney-ish fare.

THIS WEEK (April 21st): Dennis Quaid enjoys the company of Topher Grace; Michael Keaton talks to the dead; and hey! hey! hey! - a likely flop on its way.

• In Good Company
• White Noise
• Fat Albert

IN THE WEEKS TO COME:

• Birth
• Crash
• XXX2: The Next Level
• Kingdom Of Heaven
• Boogeyman
• Sin City
• Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith

FLASHBACK: This time last year


Shaggy and Scooby not quite enough for Starsky and Hutch
(1) STARSKY & HUTCH
(2) SCOOBY DOO 2: MONSTERS UNLEASHED
(3) THE CAT IN THE HAT
(4) 50 FIRST DATES
(5) TAKING LIVES

Highest Debut - TAKING LIVES - $1,189,587
Highest Gross - LOTR: THE RETURN OF THE KING - $49,161,709

[XCoRyX]

i was thinking amityville would be in the top 3...obviously didn't repeat its US peformance.

[FilmBuff84]

Yeah, would've been nice for Amityville to crack top 3, but making top 5 is still good. It's very rare for a horror film here to equal or surpass its run in the US. The Scream films and thrillers like The Ring, The Others and The Sixth Sense are the kind of horror films that have done good business, but the big US hits like Freddy Vs Jason, Dawn of the Dead and Texas Chainsaw Massacre haven't come close in Australia.

[Thes]

"and thrillers like The Ring, The Others and The Sixth Sense are the kind of horror films that have done good business"

Do you think that has something to do with who stars in each? The Ring - Naomi Watts, The Others - Nicole Kidman, Sixth Sense - Toni Collett. Or do we Aussies just have different tastes in our fright-fests?

[FilmBuff84]

I never really thought of the specific Aussie connection with those films, but I really think it's the films and not the stars that drove those. Naomi Watts wasn't really a big name with The Ring, and Toni Collette was never really advertised with Sixth Sense. I think the films were a bit different than the usual horror/thriller fare at the time that they succeeded, plus were coming off good word of mouth. And more often than not a horror film opening here generally goes up against stiff competition, or films that appeal to a wider audience than a horror film. This last weekend was Amityville vs. The Interpreter, Texas Chainsaw Massacre opened opposite School Of Rock, Dawn of the Dead was in direct competition with Harry Potter 3, Freddy Vs Jason versus Intolerable Cruelty, so their tends to be that pattern. Boogeyman and House of Wax are the next two big horror films on the way, so we'll see how they hold up.