9th - 12th January 2014

After 3 weekends of play, Frozen has managed to wrest control of the charts from the desolation of Smaug dropping a low for this weekend 35%.  Frozen has now amassed a wonderful 22.7m and appears on target for a total above 32m.  Below frozen, saw the film that has led the box office since boxing day, The hobbit: Desolation of Smaug down a further 52% for weekend total of just under 3m.  It's total now stands at 31.5m which by any means but middle earth is good.  unfortunately for DOS it's now the weakest of the middle earth films by Jackson.  It also appears it may be the first of the middle earth films to dip below 40m for a final total.  Though it still has a chance if it can right the ship next weekend of passing the 40m mark.   The biggest opener of the weekend belonged to the book thief which managed and reasonable 2.5m.  Right behind that was Saving mr banks which opened to also quite reasonable 2.3m.  I think both films will be hoping for strong legs given their older audience both films are targeting.  Walter mitty passing 10m over the weekend and appears it will wind up close to 15m when it's all said and done.  Speaking of 15m, Anchorman 2 has now managed to pass 16m in Australia, which is way above my original prediction (lets not talk about it!).  Anyway, it appears Anchorman 2 is going to try and given 20m a shake which will be a great result given the original film only managed 2.3m.

Other films in the top 20 of interest included a disappointing opening from Free Birds of 1.1m, American Hustle passed 10m finally, the Railway Man appears on target for a total around 6m to 7m at the moment, Cloudy 2 is passed 11m now and finally Catching Fire is still burning up the charts and now nearly 38.5m and less than 1m away from Iron Man 3's total (currently leader of 2013).  Lastly of note, Gravity is still holding onto a top 20 finish week in, week out.  It's now made it to it's 14th week in the chart which is great, and it's now passed 21m.

Here is the top 20:

TW	LW	Movie	Rating	Distributor	Weekend Gross	% Change	Screen Count / Change		Average	Total Gross	Week #
1	2	Frozen	PG	Disney	$ 3,130,836	-35.0%	460	10	$6,806	$ 22,698,380	3
2	1	The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug	M	Warner Bros	$ 2,959,024	-51.9%	575	-56	$5,146	$ 31,483,305	3
3	N	The Book Thief	PG	Fox	$ 2,427,988	-	241	-	$10,075	$ 2,615,843	1
4	N	Saving Mr. Banks	PG	Disney	$ 2,257,869	-	272	-	$8,301	$ 2,411,072	1
5	3	The Secret Life of Walter Mitty	M	Fox	$ 1,462,313	-46.2%	266	-1	$5,497	$ 10,982,250	3
6	4	Anchorman 2	M	Paramount	$ 1,120,007	-50.7%	238	-140	$4,706	$ 16,143,837	4
7	N	Free Birds	G	Roadshow	$ 1,094,800	-	277	-	$3,952	$ 1,251,238	1
8	7	Philomena	M	Hopscotch	$ 834,425	-36.7%	126	5	$6,622	$ 5,849,399	3
9	5	Walking with Dinosaurs 3D	PG	Fox	$ 819,239	-46.3%	358	-23	$2,288	$ 3,908,614	2
10	6	August: Osage County	MA15+	Roadshow	$ 681,408	-52.7%	219	2	$3,111	$ 3,238,090	2
11	8	American Hustle	M	Roadshow	$ 676,579	-45.7%	148	-100	$4,571	$ 10,205,408	5
12	9	The Railway Man	M	Transmission	$ 574,143	-44.2%	123	3	$4,668	$ 4,209,242	3
13	10	The Hunger Games: Catching Fire	M	Roadshow	$ 470,071	-43.9%	120	-41	$3,917	$ 38,482,127	8
14	11	Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2	G	Sony	$ 388,490	-46.9%	160	-83	$2,428	$ 11,222,587	6
15	N	Veeram	MA15+	Ayngaran	$ 61,811	-	7	-	$8,830	$ 61,811	1
16	14	Gravity	M	Warner Bros	$ 57,317	54.7%	17	4	$3,372	$ 21,132,669	15
17	12	The Gilded Cage	M	Palace	$ 49,422	-61.7%	16	-4	$3,089	$ 711,440	5
18	N	Lan Kwai Fong 3	MA15+	Chinalion	$ 46,868	-	8	-	$5,859	$ 46,868	1
19	-	Stories we tell	M	Palace	$ 45,409	-	2	-	$22,705	$ 685,508	16
20	15	Great White Shark 3D	G	Imax	$ 33,566	15.9%	2	1	$16,783	$ 103,929	3