The weekend’s ticket sales held well this week, again just over $18m, for the second consecutive week with a relatively small week-on-week drop of 4%. Lion continued to rule the roost, while Split proved itself worthy of more than the handle of a cult horror movie hit. In fact the last weekend of January was big for horror fans with two openings ranking in the top five.
#1 Lion $4.18m
The Aussie indie production has set a record by spending a second week at #1 on the box office chart. With the box office take steady just under $4.2m for a second week, it joins The Great Gatsby is the only other film to earn more on its second weekend. That means Lion outperformed Mad Max: Fury Road, Australia and Happy Feet which all took just over $4.1m on their second weekends. The film smashed it in screen average again this weekend too with $16,286, down only marginally on last week’s $16,525 per screen.
#2 Split $3.46m
The psychological horror film written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan had a strong opening on 289 screens with a screen average of $11,987.
#3 XXX: Return Of Xander Cage $1.33m
The third film in the Xander Cage series remained on 331 screens for its second weekend with a screen average of $4,036, down from close to $9,000 the previous weekend. Gross was down 55% from its opening weekend and the film has earned $5.52m to-date.
#4 Resident Evil: The Final Chapter $1.25m
This is reportedly the last in the six-film Resident Evil series from filmmaker Paul W.S. Anderson. The film features Aussie actress Ruby Rose and it opened on 258 screens with a screen average just under $5,000.
#5 La La Land $1.19m
More awards and more solid box office. At the Screen Actor’s Guild Awards yesterday, La La Land star Emma Stone won the Best Actress Award although the film’s cast wasn’t nominated for Best Ensemble. The box office only dipped week-on-week by 11%, helped along no doubt by its record-equalling 14 Oscar nominations. The film remains top five after five weeks with a total to-date of $15.5m.
Outside of the top five, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story sits at #8 and the film, still on 271 screens, passed $50m over the weekend. The film now sits at #8 on the all-time box office chart for takings in Australia.