Four months after his unexpected death, Michael Jackson once again climbed to the top of the charts, this time in film form with his aptly named documentary This Is It.

The Sony release was always going to top the charts in New Zealand, arriving as it did with a massive amount of pre-hype and the initial tantalizing two-week in theatres tag (which has now been extended). But the million dollar question was always how big it would open? Well, This Is It opened with the fifth biggest weekend of the year and crushed the rest of the top ten in spectacular fashion.

Combining a built in fanbase still in shock over the death of the superstar mere months ago with blitzkrieg marketing and the film mirrored the rest of the worldwide box office (over $100 Million) as it dominated completely. In fact the Jacko doco grossed almost as much as the entire Kiwi box office over the same weekend in 2008. 

Settling for second place with around a quarter of the gross, Meryl Streep led Julie and Julia to $260,000 and a one-two finish for Sony Pictures. Sliding into third was the Bruce Willis action vehicle The Surrogates, which has suffered from a bit of an identity crisis in the marketing and is rapidly seeing its grosses diminish. What would have been at least a million dollar gross is tumbling down the charts and might barely scrape $800,000, a very disappointing result.

The Final Destination got hammered by This Is It despite Halloween falling on the Saturday. The 3-D fright fest saw a large chunk of its potential target audience choose This Is It as it fell by the largest amount in the top ten (57%). Rounding out the top five was Couples Retreat which continues to pull in respectable numbers despite an overwhelming negative critical reaction, look for the Vince Vaughn starer to crest over $1 Million in the next couple of days.

An Education settled into sixth position, collecting another $46,000 to add to a very respectable total for the Paramount release. Being slaughtered in seventh, Saw VI also saw its audience eaten away by the Jackson flick and couldn’t gain any traction despite the Halloween festivities. Saw doesn’t even have the massive threat of the new horror sensation Paranormal Activity to compete with in NZ, so the very low return will be alarming for distributors.

The only other new release to enter the top ten settled into eighth with All’s Well That End’s Well, the latest NT opera to come to New Zealand cinemas. (500) Days Of Summer continued to impress in ninth as it inches toward the million dollar mark. Rounding out the top ten was Disney’s Up which has just soared over the $4 Million mark and will end its run as one of the most popular films of 2009 and promises a bumper DVD release early next year.

Next week should see a tight race between openers A Christmas Carol (with Jim Carrey), The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus (Featuring Johnny Deep, Colin Farrell, Jude Law and Heath Ledgers last role) and the sophomore season of This Is It. But all told the box office looks to continue the momentum and easily beat 2008 levels.