April has started well for cinema owners as Beauty And The Beast spends another week at #1. Total weekend earn was $18.29m, down 19% on the opening weekend of Beauty And The Beast. The last two weekends have seen over $40m worth of tickets sold for the top 20 movies. That is good news for the sector with Easter and the first school holiday period around the corner.
#1 Beauty And The Beast $7.74m
After a massive screen average of $18,600 a week ago, the movie dropped to a screen average of $12,100 as it shed 71 screens – from 706 to 635. The second weekend takings have pushed total earnings to $26.15m and guaranteed the film a spot in the top 10 movies of the year. For the past two years $29m would have got you on that list and Beauty And The Beast should speed past that mark in the next few days.
#2 The Lego Batman Movie $2.28m
The writers and director of The Lego Movie have struck again, this time with figurines featuring the heroes and villains from Gotham. Batman appeared in both movies with Will Arnett again voicing the character of Batman. The movie had a screen average just over $5,000 for its 455 screens. While The Lego Movie managed to take $29.83m in 2014, that could be a big ask for The Lego Batman Movie after a start just over $2.2m, despite the impending school holidays.
#3 Ghost In The Shell $2.12m
Another week and another sci-fi movie with this action movie starring Scarlett Johansson opening on 423 screens with a screen average of $5,727. Ghost opened on over 100 more screens than Life a week ago and it had a $700 better screen average.
#4 The Boss Baby $1.97m
The second of two animated movies in the top four this week is also getting positioned for the school holidays. With a second weekend on 284 screens, up 25 on its opening weekend, the movie averaged $6,964 on those screens, the second-best figure after Beauty And The Beast for a movie in wide release. The screen average was down on last weekend’s $10,500. Total earnings so far are just over $7.5m.
#5 Life $797,000
Weekend two for the astronauts with takings down 48% – from $1.54m to $797,000. Screen average dropped from close to $5,000 to just over $3,000 with the movie shedding 51 screens to 254.