Australian Box Office - Week 34 23rd August 2010

Leader of the Pack in 2010
Toy Story 3
$42,103,574

No	Movie Title	Distributor	Cinemas	Averages	$ Week	%	$ Total	WIR
1	Salt	Sony	365	$10,796	3,940,438	NA	4,056,861	1
2	Inception	Warner Bros	379	$4,886	1,851,646	-42%	30,017,699	5
3	The Expendables	Roadshow	224	$7,529	1,686,539	-47%	5,916,109	2
4	Step Up 3D	Universal	260	$4,743	1,233,167	-42%	8,250,076	4
5	Scott Pilgrim vs. The World	Universal	177	$3,561	630,371	-33%	1,988,412	2
6	The Ghost Writer	Hoyts	76	$4,360	331,375	-44%	1,365,991	2
7	Killers	Roadshow	214	$1,217	260,464	-60%	5,378,140	4
8	Matching Jack	Fox	186	$1,387	258,011	NA	274,834	1
9	Toy Story 3	Walt Disney	80	$2,104	168,340	-54%	42,016,458	9
10	The Twilight Saga: Eclipse	Hoyts	92	$1,140	104,908	-51%	31,922,757	8
11	Knight & Day	Fox	100	$917	91,698	-70%	10,010,911	6
12	Hubble 3D	IMAX	5	$12,344	61,720	-15%	190,598	2
13	Four Lions	Hopscotch	11	$5,115	56,270	NA	106,181	1
14	Cairo Time	Paramount	12	$4,501	54,017	NA	74,531	1
15	The Special Relationship	Roadshow	51	$894	45,576	-63%	497,013	3
16	The Karate Kid	Sony	80	$557	44,536	-73%	13,313,074	7
17	Me and Orson Welles	Madman	29	$1,279	37,090	-51%	441,640	4
18	South Solitary	Icon	34	$1,010	34,354	-51%	471,194	4
19	Father Of My Children	Palace	14	$1,668	23,358	NA	58,663	PR
20	Splice	Madman	36	$647	23,290	-61%	115,885	2

Something of a shake up in the top twenty as we finally got a new highest grossing movie and a few so so runs dropped out. Sony have managed around $12 million for another inane comedy in Grown Ups. The movie never really pitched outside it's demographics, date movie crowd etc, but the Studio will be reasonably pleased with the result overall. Paramount went head to head with Toy Story 3 and came off second best with the far superior Shrek Forever After. Even though box office figures were damaged by the previous movie, Shrek 4 was still something of a juggernaut with a very solid $27.5 million in the bank. Fingers crossed a fifth movie comes our way, there on opening night folks. Predators re-established the fanbase for Fox and a $6.3 result would be more than was expected. The movie laboured under the yolk of the AVP twin disasters but found a lot of support and had a very solid six week run.

ScaryMinds score in '10

6 for 13 - Get ready for dark genre mayhem next weekend!

Angela Jolie showed Timmy Cruise how it's done with the actioner Salt opening in top spot on the chart. Sony found 365 locations in a cramped release window, would have been slightly disturbed by the $10,796 average, but are half way to a breakout hit and looking solid. I've actually got zero to say about this one, hey I like James Bond as well, and the trailers look interesting. Now we wait on word of mouth

Continuing the deception Inception, oh that's bad, breached the $30 million mark as self satisfied bogans everywhere congratulated themselves on their intellegence, last used to work out the ending of that Tom Hank's book The Da Vinci Code. You'll find it in their Freedom bookshelf right next to the wife's pristine copies of the Twilight books. Anywise huge result for Warner Bros, and once again outstanding advertising campaign that has about everyone fooled. The Expendables continues to show the aged folk can get down and dirty with the new breed without batting an eyelid, considering the new breed sucks by and large that's not saying a lot. Roadshow might be a tad disappointed end of day there.

Eclipse repeated last weekend's drop of -51% and is in the grind. $33 million looks to be the top for the movie, but considering the budget the Studio would have been in profit purely on the Down Under result. I've given up, yes it should sweep the Oscars and Stephenie Meyers is the bestest ever writer and deserves to be applauded. Of course considering there's actually zero originality in the series that's not going to happen. And what have we here kids, Splice imploded on weekend two as punters realised it was just another conveyor belt Boredwood studio horror. Not sure if Madman achieved there goals there, but they would not have been expecting the kick in the bum they received at the box office here.

What's Coming Up, if anything

Icon are taking something of a risk with the serial killer film The Killer Inside Me, Michael Winterbottom's latest looking likely to split Reviewers and fans. It's not holding back it's punches and could return a solid result for the Independant Distributor. Fingers crossed this one looks like a departure from Encounter group lead movie development. Roadshow have gone over the trenches with the creature feature 3D Piranha promising a return to "B" grade goodness. I've actually got tickets to the Wednesday preview screening and am really looking forward to seeing what Aja can do with a "in name only" remake. If Icon are battling uphill with a hard to sell movie then Fox may have stepped into something on the pavement, Vampires Suck should be applauded as a spoof on the Twitard movies, pity we aren't getting a decent film folks. This one is running at 5% on the RT counter, the lowest I've ever seen for a dark genre movie.

There's a new player on the dark genre block in the form of Monster Pictures who enter the fray this weekend with the Dutch movie The Human Centipede. If you think Icon and Fox have a hard sell on their hands, well Monster have gone rabid and are sending us the most controversial movie of the year. Good on them, fingers crossed it shakes things up. Sal over at beyondscary.com is certainly excited about things, and why shouldn't he be, without Monster Pics we may never have got this one on DVD even. If you are in one of the major centers then get out and support a Distributor prepared to bring you the next generation in horror subversive film making. By all accounts The Humand Centipede, besides having three people joined mouth to arse with a common digestive tract, is a black comedy that is winning a cult following.

Okay four movies, four projections needed. Vampires Suck will not surprisingly lead the pack, it's inane a good selling point with the bogan masses and the twitards unaware the piss is being taken out of them, $1.1 million. 3D Piranha should appeal to a more core horror audience, maybe $750k there. Icon will go for a limited run with The Killer Inside Me, $70k to help domestic DVD marketing. And The Human Centipede should make $8k or so dependant on how many people become aware of the media opening.

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