Easter Releases - Upcoming

Well it's now only 3 weeks away from the Easter weekend and most state are taking their school holidays prior to Easter.

Weekend Results: 27th to 30th March 2014 - Noah sets sail while Mr Peabody is in the doghouse

After a weak number of a weeks at the box office, theatre owners finally had something to crow about. Noah, the controversial version of the story based upon the old testament, managed to open at 4.5m.

Weekend Results 20th to 23rd March 2014: Monuments holds onto the top, after the openers fail to arrive

This weekend saw the wide opening of 4 films (with 3 over 100 screen counts), but you would not have known it. The Monuments Men stood proud over a very weak weekend as the only film to make more than 1m this weekend.

Weekend Results 13th to 16th March 2014: Most find the monuments while Need for Speed misses the accelerator....

This week saw the opening of 2 films with The Monuments Men surprisingly leading the weekend with a strong 2.3m.  Monuments opened to 22m back in early February in the US.  The result was middling at best.  Something that i didn't see being replicated here.  Need for Speed on the other hand couldn't even touch the sides of the openings that the similar Fast and Furious series has pulled here.  NFS managed to open to only 1.5m.  This was well below the expected results and I am sure like the US the studio wanted more.  Given it's much lower cost than the before mention Fast serious, NFS can't be considered a flop, but a serious dissappointment it is.  Lets hope Divergent can fill the gap that this has left.

Last weekends leader 300: rise of an empire dipped a high 50% for a running total just short of 6m.  It now already lies some 4m short at the same point from the original film. In fact at this rate, it will be lucky if it even gets close to 10m which would have been a total this film was gunning for before it opened.  Non-Stop dipped a further 40% for a 4.5m total.  Vampire Academy dropped 45% for a not surprisingly weak 1.3m.

Top 20:

TW	LW	Movie	Rating	Distributor	Weekend Gross	% Change	Screen Count / Change		Average	Total Gross	Week #
1	N	The Monuments Men	M	Fox	$ 2,319,102	-	323	-	$7,180	$ 2,520,352	1
2	1	300: Rise of Empire	MA15+	Warner Bros	$ 1,586,801	-50.0%	467	0	$3,398	$ 5,960,525	2
3	N	Need for Speed	M	Dreamworks	$ 1,513,581	-	457	-	$3,312	$ 1,528,726	1
4	2	Non-Stop	M	Studiocanal	$ 648,511	-39.3%	235	-18	$2,760	$ 4,520,352	3
5	3	Vampire Academy	M	Studiocanal	$ 400,736	-44.5%	164	2	$2,444	$ 1,329,858	2
6	4	12 Years a Slave	MA15+	Icon	$ 381,851	-38.1%	209	-15	$1,827	$ 6,719,439	7
7	5	The Wolf of Wall Street	R18+	Roadshow	$ 329,088	-43.4%	112	-55	$2,938	$ 22,570,968	8
8	6	Tracks	M	Paramount	$ 313,527	-43.6%	203	2	$1,544	$ 1,458,250	2
9	7	Wolf Creek 2	MA15+	Roadshow	$ 248,316	-51.2%	177	-31	$1,403	$ 4,460,540	4
10	9	The Dallas Buyers Club	MA15+	Pinnacle	$ 232,700	-32.7%	78	-7	$2,983	$ 2,208,972	5
11	8	Lone Survivor	MA15+	Disney	$ 139,092	-66.5%	125	-96	$1,113	$ 3,905,738	4
12	10	Last Vegas	M	Universal	$ 119,800	-59.0%	113	-65	$1,060	$ 6,627,158	6
13	11	Robocop	M	Sony	$ 71,293	-63.9%	60	-72	$1,188	$ 6,985,937	5
14	14	Le Week-End	M	Paramount	$ 68,900	-33.8%	55	1	$1,253	$ 854,004	4
15	13	Are we officially dating?	MA15+	Studiocanal	$ 60,577	-50.6%	38	-36	$1,594	$ 2,551,721	5
16	18	The Wind Rises	PG	Madman	$ 51,767	-33.8%	10	0	$5,177	$ 364,164	3
17	N	Generation Iron	M	Madman	$ 51,482	-	14	-	$3,677	$ 57,682	1
18	N	The Armstrong Lie	M	Sony	$ 47,787	-	8	-	$5,973	$ 53,754	1
19	19	Nebraska	M	Roadshow	$ 41,883	-42.0%	36	-5	$1,163	$ 548,708	4
20	17	The Book Thief	PG	Fox	$ 39,098	-59.2%	30	-32	$1,303	$ 13,911,070	10

Weekend Results 6th to 10th March: 300 Rises but falls well short of par....

300: Rise of the Empire opened over the weekend managing a reasonable 3.2m.  However to put this opening in context, the original film "300" opened to a then impressive 5.3m (6.4m 5 day) opening over the easter weekend.  Given that film was some 7 years ago now, this opening is not completely surprising.  Rise did have 3D as a addition this time around, but it did not help the film at all.  Still it's not a complete wash with over a 3m opening weekend.  I did expect more with the film making it past 4m at least on opening weekend.  To make matters worse, 300 Rise of the empire cornered 467 screens, the widest release so far this year (excluding 2013 carryover films) which left it with a disappointing 7k average running at less than half the average the original film saw in 2007.  (I admit that 300 was only on 337 screens, but this is a substantial drop off).

If the film wasn't oscar driven they took a big hit this weekend.  Last weekends number 1 film, Non-Stop dipped a standard 43% for a running total of nearly 3.5m.  Wolf Creek 2 bled 50% and passed a 4m total.  Wolf Creek 2 continues to run at the same pace as the original and should wind up close to or just past the 6m mark. The wolf of wall street also slipped 35% and is now just shy of 22m.  bucking the trend was the best film winner 12 years a slave, increasing by 25%.  12 Years has now managed to make 6m in it's short in cinemas.  Also in the 5, opening in 3rd place, Vampire Academy, did a lot better than expected and while no doubt this film is a bomb, it somehow found an audience here garnering over 700k.

No film in the top 10 made an average over 10k this week, but down in 15th spot saw the opening of the Philopino hit "Starting over again" on only 7 screens.  Thanks to it's strong average of 15k (something that 300 Rise so wanted), it made over 100k for the weekend.

The coming weekend sees a day and date release with the US of the latest video game movie.  Need for Speed is finally hitting cinemas in what should be an interesting run.  NFS is very similar to the fast & furious franchise in that both films are about fast cars.  NFS however over the years has built a large fanbase of gamers.  How that will translate at the box office is anyone's guess.  Not only that, but this film also has the fact that it shares so much in common with the Fast & Furious films. This could also be a curse.  But given the Fast franchise is essentially on hold at the moment, this film could capatilise.  Currently I am forecasting a 3m opening weekend, but would not be shocked if it went much higher but i'm not seeing that here as such.

EDIT - 
Frozen is missing from the chart below.  I'm not going to edit the chart at this point but i think it made around 200k for the weekend.

The top 20 looks like:

TW	LW	Movie	Rating	Distributor	Weekend Gross	% Change	Screen Count / Change		Average	Total Gross	Week #
1	N	300: Rise of Empire	MA15+	Warner Bros	$ 3,170,506	-	467	-	$6,789	$ 3,201,823	1
2	1	Non-Stop	M	Studiocanal	$ 1,068,406	-42.8%	253	7	$4,223	$ 3,478,014	2
3	N	Vampire Academy	M	Studiocanal	$ 721,976	-	162	-	$4,457	$ 721,976	1
4	7	12 Years a Slave	MA15+	Icon	$ 617,273	24.6%	224	64	$2,756	$ 6,047,058	6
5	3	The Wolf of Wall Street	R18+	Roadshow	$ 581,624	-35.2%	167	-61	$3,483	$ 21,998,538	7
6	N	Tracks	M	Paramount	$ 555,600	-	201	-	$2,764	$ 855,286	1
7	2	Wolf Creek 2	MA15+	Roadshow	$ 508,839	-49.6%	208	-10	$2,446	$ 4,025,247	3
8	4	Lone Survivor	MA15+	Disney	$ 415,163	-53.7%	221	-9	$1,879	$ 3,610,044	3
9	10	The Dallas Buyers Club	MA15+	Pinnacle	$ 345,934	23.8%	85	9	$4,070	$ 1,834,261	4
10	5	Last Vegas	M	Universal	$ 291,970	-51.1%	178	-55	$1,640	$ 6,379,407	5
11	6	Robocop	M	Sony	$ 197,584	-60.7%	132	-62	$1,497	$ 6,842,306	4
12	8	3 Days to Kill	M	Roadshow	$ 194,261	-59.8%	163	0	$1,192	$ 841,431	2
13	9	Are we officially dating?	MA15+	Studiocanal	$ 122,731	-58.6%	74	-87	$1,659	$ 2,442,615	4
14	11	Le Week-End	M	Paramount	$ 104,064	-47.4%	54	-5	$1,927	$ 732,277	3
15	N	Starting over again	M	ABS-CBN	$ 101,909	-	7	-	$14,558	$ 101,909	1
16	N	National Theatre Live: War Horse	EX	Sharmill	$ 96,816	-	34	-	$2,848	$ 96,816	1
17	13	The Book Thief	PG	Fox	$ 95,774	-46.8%	62	-30	$1,545	$ 13,809,204	9
18	18	The Wind Rises	PG	Madman	$ 78,186	-32.8%	10	1	$7,819	$ 270,606	2
19	17	Nebraska	M	Roadshow	$ 72,269	-40.8%	41	-4	$1,763	$ 468,822	3
20	16	Philomena	M	Hopscotch	$ 62,795	-49.3%	65	-50	$966	$ 11,211,688	11

Weekend Results 27th Feb to 2nd March 2014 - Non-Stop takes the lead over the oscar weekend

The new Liam Neeson film Non-Stop has easily taken the top spot from Wolf Creek 2 with a total of 1.9m.  The Australian horror franchise film Wolf Creek 2 managed a 40% dip from it's average opening weekend.  It now has 3.2m in the kitty.  The total is slightly ahead of it's predecessor thanks to it's larger opening weekend. Still it has a small way to go before it can pass the first film.  The oscar weekend helped a number of films in the top 20 with The wolf of wall street managing a 15% dip this weekend.  The wolf now has over 21m which is easily the biggest R18+ rated film in australian history.  WOWs should go on to pass 25m at this rate and if it continues holds in this vicinity a total approaching 30m is possible.  Lone Survivor dipped 40% for a total just shy of 3m.  Last Vegas rounded out the 5 with a total of 6m.

Also opening over the weekend was 3 Days to Kill which could only manage 483k on 163 screens.  The generic Taken lookalike without the hook just didn't click with audiences here like in the US only a week earlier.  Of bigger interest to Hayao Miyazaki fans, his latest effort opened on 9 screens to an impressive 116k.

Other films that benefited from the oscars were 12 Years a slave (+20%), Dallas buyers club (+1%), and Gravity (-12%) and still in the top 20 after 22 weeks.  I expect that 12 years a slave and Gravity to benefit the most from the oscars with both films picking up the most gongs (Gravity the most including best director with 12 years a slave in 2nd including best picture).    Gravity's increase may be muted however due the fact the Blueray has been released in the past week.

This weekend coming is the release of the 300 sequel which we are getting 1 day earlier than stateside.  The original film made a strong 5.3m (6.4m long weekend) over the easter weekend in 2007.  This time, 300 does not have the support of holiday weekend and opens in the middle of school / uni time.  The original film had a strong run winding up with over 14m.  An opening above 5m and we are ship shape.  Anything under 4m and things aren't so rosie.  I'm expecting an opening around 4.5m. with enough legs to pass 12m.

Here is last weekends top 20:

TW	LW	Movie	Rating	Distributor	Weekend Gross	% Change	Screen Count / Change		Average	Total Gross	Week #
1	N	Non-Stop	M	Studiocanal	$ 1,869,355	-	246	-	$7,599	$ 1,869,355	1
2	1	Wolf Creek 2	MA15+	Roadshow	$ 1,009,865	-39.9%	218	2	$4,632	$ 3,242,765	2
3	3	The Wolf of Wall Street	R18+	Roadshow	$ 898,128	-15.4%	228	-79	$3,939	$ 21,101,674	6
4	2	Lone Survivor	MA15+	Disney	$ 897,446	-39.6%	230	-29	$3,902	$ 2,925,509	2
5	4	Last Vegas	M	Universal	$ 596,913	-26.4%	233	-14	$2,562	$ 5,929,187	4
6	5	Robocop	M	Sony	$ 503,117	-37.0%	194	-30	$2,593	$ 6,510,591	4
7	7	12 Years a Slave	MA15+	Icon	$ 495,218	19.7%	160	2	$3,095	$ 5,100,811	5
8	N	3 Days to Kill	M	Roadshow	$ 483,428	-	163	-	$2,966	$ 483,428	1
9	6	Are we officially dating?	MA15+	Studiocanal	$ 296,247	-34.8%	161	-13	$1,840	$ 2,228,903	3
10	9	The Dallas Buyers Club	MA15+	Pinnacle	$ 279,384	1.7%	76	6	$3,676	$ 1,329,733	3
11	11	Le Week-End	M	Paramount	$ 198,008	-13.3%	59	0	$3,356	$ 560,056	2
12	8	Endless Love	M	Universal	$ 189,842	-52.7%	174	-32	$1,091	$ 1,990,562	3
13	10	The Book Thief	PG	Fox	$ 180,039	-34.0%	92	-49	$1,957	$ 13,647,507	8
14	12	Frozen	PG	Disney	$ 156,542	-27.8%	134	-27	$1,168	$ 34,769,871	10
15	N	Shaadi Ke Side Effects	M	Eros	$ 145,487	-	23	-	$6,326	$ 145,487	1
16	13	Philomena	M	Hopscotch	$ 123,755	-31.4%	115	-30	$1,076	$ 11,078,221	10
17	15	Nebraska	M	Roadshow	$ 122,082	-13.3%	45	2	$2,713	$ 339,277	2
18	N	The Wind Rises	PG	Madman	$ 116,392	-	9	-	$12,932	$ 144,648	1
19	N	Met Opera: Rusalka	EX	Sharmill	$ 88,604	-	31	-	$2,858	$ 88,604	1
20	20	Gravity	M	Warner Bros	$ 74,839	-12.0%	43	-3	$1,740	$ 21,920,676	22