Weekend box office was just short of $19m in what we are calling the fourth weekend of the year. It’s the smallest weekend haul so far this calendar year that has seen box office dip a little each weekend since posting just over $28m on probably what was really the last weekend of 2016 (dates were December 29 to January 1).
MORE: Lion delivers 7th highest grossing opening day for an Australian film ever
#1 Lion $4.19m
Iain Canning and Emile Sherman‘s See-Saw Films has an enviable track record. Among their relatively small library of largely arthouse movies, they now have two massive hits – the multi-Academy Award/BAFTA-winning The King’s Speech and now the hit Nicole Kidman/Dev Patel drama Lion. Their latest movie opened on 254 screens over the weekend with a screen average of $16,525, which gave it an opening gross of $4.19m. That is the best screen average of any movie in wide release since Suicide Squad’s opening weekend did just under $27,000 per screen back in August 2016.
#2 XXX: Return Of Xander Cage $2.96m
The third instalment of the action movie again featuring Vin Diesel (who also gets a production credit) was just short of $3m as it opened on 331 screens, the most of any movie over the weekend. The film also stars Aussies Ruby Rose and Toni Collette in the follow-up to the first movies in the trilogy which opened in 2002 and continued in 2005. Paramount is reportedly keen to make a fourth movie too.
#3 Sing $1.63m
The rest of the top five all had their fourth weekend in cinemas. Sing not only had the biggest total on the weekend but it had amassed the biggest total to-date in that time – $25.51m.
#4 Moana $1.52m
The Walt Disney release is now screening on just under 300 screens and its total after four weekends sits on $22.41m.
#5 La La Land $1.31m
The award show darling suffered its biggest percentage drop yet after it found new life after its Golden Globe wins. Box office dipped 43% this week as takings to-date are now $13.61m. The movie added 41 screens over the weekend to 251 – will the distributor have faith in the release to get a swag of Oscar nominations this week which could give it another box office kick-start?