Box office for the weekend was down just 2% week-on-week to $14.60m with the arrival of Hidden Figures at #1 and $3m earns from two other movies. The top three movies accounted for $9m of the $14.60m earned by the top 20 movies from Thursday to Sunday inclusive.
#1 Hidden Figures $3.25m
The well-reviewed movie about female African-American mathematicians at NASA has managed to knock Fifty Shades Darker from top spot. The biographical drama distributed by Fox has opened on 322 screens giving it the week’s best screen average of $10,107.
#2 Fifty Shades Darker $3.07m
Takings fell 50% for the film’s second weekend as it shed 140 screens to 472 with a screen average of $6,505. In its short time in cinemas the movie has taken $13.7m.
#3 The Great Wall $2.96m
Universal opened this Matt Damon “monster” film set in China during the Song dynasty on 370 screens to just under $3m with an OK screen average of $8,001.
#4 Lion $1.88m
As foreshadowed here over the past few weeks, Lion has made it into the top 10 Australian films of all time, this week overtaking Red Dog (which drops out of that top 10), and moving up the chart to #8 past Mad Max: Fury Road and Strictly Ballroom with its gross to-date of $22.71m. Screen average this week was $6,539 and a full house at Open Air Cinema last night will help keep it bubbling along this week. Some Oscar action will not hurt next week if it manages to win.
#5 Split $972,000
No horror story this one – the film has become the biggest hit for M. Night Shyamalan since he burst onto the scene with The Sixth Sense way back in 1999. The film has hovered in the top five for four weeks and has earned a total of $11.16m so far.
Outside the top five: T2: Trainspotting previewed on 197 screens, earning $370,000, just missing the top five this weekend.