As expected, The Passion of the Christ spent another round in the top spot in Australia, although also as expected,
its performance registered as a distant cousin of the dollars it has continued to rake in in the U.S. The Mel Gibson
directed and Jim Caviezel starring pictures the follows the twelve hours of the life of Christ before his death was off
by a moderate 30% in its second weekend. Collecting another $2.09 million through the weekend, The Passion of the
Christ has seen its total rise to $6.92 million, a fine total in its own right. This total already places The
Passion in position eight for the year and assures its trek to the $10 million mark. Although its screen count last
weekend was severely under par, only six new screens were added over the weekend. With a soft count of 151, The
Passion's average remained at a robust $13,880.
Normally, any fall of 30% would be considered a nice hold for most films, although given the substantial underperformance of the film in Australia - or massive over performance of the film in the U.S. - something a little stronger could have been expected. Although they share very few similarities, The Passion of the Christ's performance is still tracking close to January's Spy Kids 3D, which opened very similarly last weekend, and was off 27% in its second for $2.18 million. Currently The Passion is tracking just 6.4% behind, which puts on good footing to at least $12.5 million. This would put it in comparable territory to Gibson's own Braveheart, which netted a fine $12.23 million back in 1995. The good news is that The Passion will be able to hold a lot better than Spy Kids 3D did post week four, when it ran into the end of the school holidays. If so, The Passion has a good shot at passing the $12.80 million of Icon's current number one film Bend It Like Beckham.
Compared to the U.S. pace, The Passion of the Christ is still tracking a very large margin behind* in Australia, this weekend coming in 68% down*. This is an ever so slight improvement on the 71% lower* opening weekend last week. The Passion was off by a slightly larger 37% through its second frame in the U.S., with the second Australian frame itself coming in 61% weaker* than the second U.S. frame. Perhaps the Australian pace will be able to pick up some of the slack in the weeks ahead*, but I wouldn't be too surprised to see that margin turn around again* against Australia's favour and finish up at least 75% behind* the U.S. pace when finals are all counted.
Of the five new releases of the weekend, it was only The Missing that managed to make any dent in the top five as it
landed in position two. The Cate Blanchett and Tommy Lee Jones starring flick that follows the story of a mother and her
father in pursuit of a band of kidnappers that have taken her daughter collected a neat $1.24 million over the weekend.
Directed by Ron Howard, The Missing opened on 209 screens and averaged a so-so $5,941 on each of them, the second
best in the top 20, although it counts as the second lowest opening average for any film to open over $1 million this year
behind Big Fish.
Granted, the opening for The Missing is a little better than what it managed in the U.S. comparatively speaking, but it hasn't reached the same kind of levels - in terms of their acceptance in Australia over what were dead showings in the U.S. - than say The Gift or Charlotte Gray. The opening of The Missing doubles the $0.67 million of last year's Blanchett comedy Bandits, and handily passes the $0.9 million and $0.92 million of both Gift and Gray. The opening for The Missing comes in close to the $1.29 million of last year's Robin Williams thriller One Hour Photo, which went on to collect $4.15 million, also a close final total to that of both Blanchett's Charlotte Gray and Jones' Volcano.
Compared to the U.S. pace, The Missing's Australian opening comes in 15% better* when comparing just the weekend frames, although due to the mid-week opening the film had in the U.S. last November, the Australian pace currently sits at 18% behind*, however unfair it is. Although the margin is negative one at this point, The Missing should have absolutely not problem in turning that margin around to a positive again, as it was off by an horrendous 62%, 62% and 73% in the following weeks. Compared to my opening weekend projections, The Missing was very close to my $1.1 million forecast.
Holding steady in third position over the weekend was the Julia Roberts flick Mona Lisa Smile. The film which
co-stars Julia Styles and Kirsten Dunst made another $0.91 million through its third weekend to raise its cume to a good
$5.81 million. Off by a fine 33%, similar to last weekend, Mona Lisa Smile is proving to at least be consistent if
not a replica of the usual Roberts pace.
Mona Lisa Smile is now tracking a much better 13.8% behind the three week pace of Roberts' 2001 comedy America's Sweethearts, an improvement again over the 22.8% margin of last weekend and 35.9% negative margin from the weekend before. Sweethearts was off by a reasonably larger 46% in its third weekend. Currently Mona Lisa Smile is sitting as Roberts' 14th best film and should finish up at anywhere between position eight if it can pass the $8.11 million of 1999's Stepmom, and position ten if its fails to pass the $8.05 million of Sweethearts.
Compared to the U.S. pace, Mona Lisa Smile is now tracking a slimmer 16% ahead* in Australia, again down considerably from the 41% lead* it had last weekend and the 103% lead* from the weekend before. The Australian third frame was 10% better* than the U.S. third weekend, where the film was off 27% thanks to the New Year frame. From here on Mona Lisa Smile went on to have steadily large falls in the U.S., so the reductions in the current Australian lead should begin to slow or stop.
Last weekend's second best film was down two places to fourth, as Once Upon a Time In Mexico lost 42% of audience.
The Robert Rodriguez film which furthers the adventures of El Mariachi in a deal to take out a Mexican general collected
$0.83 million over the weekend for a so-so two week cume of $2.74 million. Starring Antonio Banderas and Johnny Depp, the
star power of the film didn't really seem to count for much after its first frame.
Although Once Upon a Time In Mexico debut stronger than Banderas' 1998 action flick The Mask of Zorro, the Anthony Hopkins co-starrer collected a better $1.2 million in its second frame and had the Christmas/New Year advantage in its path to $8.78 million. Once Upon a Time In Mexico is now tracking 2.6% behind the two week pace of Tom Hanks' The Road To Perdition, which was off 38% in its second. The crime caper's soft $4.8 million total may be just a tad too high for Once Upon a Time In Mexico to reach.
Compared to the U.S. pace, Once Upon a Time In Mexico is tracking 33% behind* in Australia, an improvement on the 38% negative margin* from last weekend. The second weekend was off by a higher 53% in the U.S., allowing for that change, while the Australian second frame was 24% weaker*.
Lord of The Rings: The Return of The King doesn't seem to want to let go of the top five, using its record equaling
Oscar haul to re-enter the charts through its 11th weekend. With the help of 11 awards, equaling the count of both
Titanic and Ben Hur, Return of The King rose 5% over the weekend for a take of $491K. This brings
the Best Picture and Best Director winner up to a massive $47.35 million, now number three on the
All Time earners list.
The weekend haul saw Return of The King overtake the $47.03 million of The Fellowship of The Ring for that third position, while the $47.70 million Crocodile Dundee, which currently sits in position two and which has only ever previously been conquered by Titanic, will fall again to Return of The King this coming weekend. Of course in actual ticket sales, Dundee sold many more tickets back in 1986 than King has managed in 2004. How many more? In today’s dollars, around $86.6 million worth.
Compared to the U.S. pace, where Return of The King saw a solid 40% spike in sales thanks to its Oscar accolades, the film is tracking 30% ahead* in Australia. That however is a direct comparison between the 11th weekend results, with that U.S. spike taking place through weekend 12. Nonetheless, Return of The King has been steadily edging up over the U.S. pace, rising from the high 20's from the previous weeks, to finally hit the 30's. Fellowship eventually finished 49% ahead* in Australia, while Towers finished 34% ahead.
The top 20 films collected $8.70 million over the weekend, down 14.3% from last weekend and down 3.9% from this weekend last year when the top 20 was led by the $2.24 million arrival of Maid In Manhattan in first place and the $0.92 million of Final Destination 2 in second place. The top 20 was up 7.6% on this weekend from two years ago when A Beautiful Mind opened in the top spot with a great $3.00 million.
Weekend Coming 11th - 14th March 2004
There's only one serious new contender for the top place this weekend, and it comes in the unlikely form of an Ashton
Kutcher drama, The Butterfly Effect. While that description of the film is somewhat oxymoronic compared to what we
have come to expect from Kutcher, the film has shown that it can hold its own through its U.S. release. Co-starring Amy
Smart and directed Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber, the writing team behind Final Destination 2, The Butterfly
Effect follows the story of Evan, who as a young child has a series of strange blackouts. Evan Finds later on in life
that those blackouts are a result of his older self traveling back to his younger self as he tries to change the outcome
of a series of traumatic events for the better, usually with more disastrous consequences.
The Butterfly Effect opened in the U.S. in late January with a chart topping $US17.1 million. The lightly produced $US13 million film witnessed some steady holding power, and its currently sitting at around $US56.5 million, with a couple million more to come. Long delayed, the film managed to overcome a high amount of critical backlash that assumed Kutcher would not be able to carry the film. The performance of The Butterfly Effect is welcome improvement over last years $US15.6 million final of My Boss's Daughter, and more closely matches the $US17.5 million opening and $US56.1 million final for Kutcher's 2003 January release Just Married. The Butterfly Effect's take was also close, although a little higher than the directing team of Bress and Gruber's Final Destination 2, which opened with $US16 million and finalized with a great $US46.9 million.
In Australia, The Passion is doing well, but has nowhere near the same potential for a third week atop that charts as it has in the U.S., which is good news for The Butterfly Effect. Kutcher's Just Married did even better in Australia than it managed in the U.S., with its opening weekend of $2.38 million coming in 36% better*, and its final total of $7.77 million edging up to 39% better*. There's no denying that this is a concept thriller film with a very identifiable theme, and while any chances at success due to the people involved that is does have, rest pretty much entirely on Kutcher's shoulders, the directing team's Final Destination 2 also did well here. It opened with $0.92 million and finished with $3.03 million, just up in the original. The Butterfly Effect should be able to pull something in the middle of those two films, both in opening and final gross terms. Expect The Butterfly Effect to have a top placing with around $1.9 million this weekend.
* Based on a US index of 10/1 with currency, ticket prices, population and cinema visits per head.
^ Based on a UK index of 2.1/1 with currency, ticket prices, population and cinema visits per head.