Top 20 - 19th - 23rd December 2013

This week, saw the opening of Anchorman 2.  The original film opened back in 2004 to a meager 767k and went on to make around 2.3m.  (It should be noted that this was the 3rd biggest market behind the UK and the USA for the film).  Anchorman 2 has blown that film out of the water, easily topping the film in it's opening 2 days.  Anchorman 2 impressed and surprised me with an opening of 5.2m (5.6m including wednesday night previews) and is comparably well ahead of the slightly disappointing opening in the US of 26m (estimated ~ 40m 5 day).  This result can be marked down to a strong marketing compaign over the past few months here in Australia.  Unless you living under a rock you knew this film was coming one way or another.  This included clever tie ins to the Ashes series (currently underway) and the recently held national elections.  I original believed AM2 capable of a 10m finish, which is now a total this film will easily surpasse and now has a reasonable shot at reaching 20m (given the release timeframe).

Last weeks top spot holder, American Hustle, dipped by a reasonable 31% to 1.5m and a running total of 4.7m.  Cloudy 2 had another strong 15% hold for a 7.3m running total and 3rd place.  4th was the 5 week old Catching Fire, which managed a further 1.4m and an impressive 34.4m running total.  Rounding out the top 5 was the previews for Frozen, which while a strong showing I must say seems a little weak.  I wasn't even aware till right before this weekend that it was in preview, making me wonder whether there was awareness that disney had this in previews this weekend.  Although it opens on boxing day, it also has further previews on christmas day itself.

Lastly, of note, Dhoom 3 opened in 6th spot with a very, very impressive 695k on only 30 screens.  It had a mindblowing (no pun intended ;) ) 23k average.  What makes this even more impressive, was the fact it opened on Friday making the takings only a 3 day weekend.

Here is the top 20:

* Dhoom 3 opened on Friday, 20th December 2013.

TW	LW	Movie	Rating	Distributor	Weekend Gross	% Change	Screen Count / Change		Average	Total Gross	Week #
1	N	Anchorman 2	M	Paramount	$ 5,223,598	-	378	-	$13,819	$ 5,581,502	1
2	1	American Hustle	M	Roadshow	$ 1,498,248	-31.3%	287	+2	$5,220	$ 4,694,507	2
3	3	Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2	G	Sony	$ 1,419,974	-15.2%	404	-61	$3,515	$ 7,288,526	3
4	2	The Hunger Games: Catching Fire	M	Roadshow	$ 1,389,441	-36.2%	442	-121	$3,144	$ 34,424,964	5
5	N	Frozen	PG	Disney	$ 1,046,467	-	420	-	$2,492	$ 1,416,520	PR
6	N	Dhoom 3 *	M	Mindblowing	$ 695,782	-	30	-	$23,193	$ 695,782	1
7	4	Delivery Man	M	Disney / DW	$ 338,807	-51.2%	218	-22	$1,554	$ 3,059,732	3
8	5	Ender's Game	M	Icon	$ 285,999	-47.4%	198	-10	$1,444	$ 2,342,294	3
9	N	Philomena	M	Hopscotch	$ 186,793	-	114	-	$1,639	$ 234,744	PR
10	7	Thor: The Dark World	M	Disney	$ 114,400	-51.5%	55	-125	$2,080	$ 22,954,335	8
11	N	Personal Tailor	PG	Chinalion	$ 108,632	-	10	-	$10,863	$ 108,632	1
12	6	Jackass presents: Bad Grandpa	MA15+	Paramount	$ 107,594	-64.7%	112	-65	$961	$ 9,588,307	6
13	10	Gravity	M	Warner Bros	$ 81,026	-31.5%	32	-34	$2,532	$ 20,815,474	12
14	8	One Chance	PG	Roadshow	$ 78,852	-57.0%	120	-114	$657	$ 2,102,076	4
15	14	The Gilded Cage	M	Palace	$ 74,538	-6.3%	20	+0	$3,727	$ 255,267	2
16	11	Captain Phillips	M	Sony	$ 52,234	-51.7%	39	-23	$1,339	$ 9,536,576	9
17	16	The Butler	M	Hopscotch	$ 46,131	-29.2%	36	-15	$1,281	$ 4,712,965	8
18	9	Carrie	MA15+	Sony	$ 44,132	-74.5%	45	-89	$981	$ 1,772,438	4
19	17	Enough Said	M	Fox Search	$ 42,408	-34.1%	46	-10	$922	$ 1,815,814	6
20	12	Battle of the year	PG	Sony	$ 39,467	-59.3%	40	-22	$987	$ 197,941	2