It is all about animals this week.
The second weekend of Kong: Skull Island tops the chart for a second week. Just one new release opened on more than 200 screens, Peppa Pig‘s first movie, and although not reaching $1m, it managed a spot in the top five.
Lion won’t stop roaring either as it hangs in the top five, ready to pass another milestone.
Weekend box office of $10.55m was the lowest weekend of the year, tumbling below $11.96m earned on the first weekend of February. Weekend ticket sales were down 26% week-on-week.
#1 Kong: Skull Island $3.13m
The latest of a long line of movies about the mythical big monkey has so far taken close to quarter of a billion US dollars with Australia contributing over $10m by the end of this week. Kong: Skull Island shed 128 screens this week to 395 with its screen average down from $11,759 to $7,993 weekend-on-weekend.
#2 Logan $2.88m
The last of the Wolverine offerings will pass $20m in this market later this week as it holds on just over 400 screens with its screen average down from $19,994 to $6,939. The third weekend take was down 36% from its second weekend.
#3 Hidden Figures $1.06m
The movie has now climbed above $15m in five weeks as it held over $1m with takings down 20% from last weekend. Its screen average from 314 screens (down 25 this week) was $3,384,
#4 Peppa Pig My First Cinema Experience: Peppa’s Australian Holiday $814,000
No school holidays yet as the animated movie opened on 251 screens to $3,246 per screen. That added up to a weekend debut of $814,000, which was the best of the new arrivals.
A Cure For Wellness is the only other biggish opening (153 screens) and did $352,000.
#5 Lion $533,000
After an incredible nine weeks in release this is the lowest the film has ranked on the box office chart. It managed over half a million dollars on the weekend. Although that represented a drop of 18%, it was the best ticket sales retention of any film in the top 20. Lion remains on 252 screens with a screen average heading toward $2,000 after peaking over $16,000 on its first two weekends of release. The movie will pass $29m some time this week which means it will be closing in on the all-time Aussie box office #4 champ, George Miller’s Happy Feet, which took $31.78m.