• Deadpool again #1 as 81-year-old Maggie Smith storms box office in her van
The Marvel action movie Deadpool continues to hold the #1 spot after four weekends in cinemas as its adds another $2.55m to its total of $37.23m. The movie is now also the highest-grossing MA15+ title of all time in Australia.
Deadpool accounted for just under 25% of the top 20 earnings of $10.60m for the weekend which is now the second-smallest grossing weekend of 2016.
The screen champ this weekend is 81-year-old Maggie Smith, who stars in The Lady in the Van as a, er, lady living in a van. The movie opened on 266 screens and earned $2.07m which equates to a screen average of $7,810.
The rest of the top five is:
#3 How To Be Single $1.31m (Total 8.09m)
#4 Hail, Caesar $675,000 (Total $2.54m)
#5 Gods Of Egypt $552,301 (Total $1.73m)
There was just one other new release in the top 10 – the US crime drama Triple 9. The opening on 145 screens pulled in $454,000 at a screen average of $3,131.
Just one movie posted a week-on-week rise in earnings, an incredible 95% jump to $454,000. That movie was the winner of Best Picture at last week’s Oscars – Spotlight. In its sixth week of release, the movie climbed from #10 to #6 with its total now sitting on $4.35m.
The US disaster movie The Finest Hours starring Chris Pine and Eric Bana missed a spot in the top 10. It opened at #12 with $237,000 from 183 screens at an average of $1,300.