Staying at the number one position for the third consecutive time, Twilight: New Moon bested all newcomers to extend its reign over the New Zealand box office.
Maintaining the top spot for what should be its last weekend, New Moon fell nearly 60% from last weekend but still managed to suck in almost $400,000 to put its lifetime total at an astonishing $5 Million. Holding a lot better than last week, the vampire epic is performing alongside expectations as the flick benefits from the core fanbase willing to watch the film multiple times in theatres. With the next Twilight movie due in July, the franchise will be well and truly one to watch this winter.
Opening in comfortably in second place was the Spike Jonze update of the classic Where The Wild Things Are. Pitching the movie at families and at the generation who have grown up with the story, distributors Roadshow cashed in on a wave of nostalgia at collected $310,000. With a very healthy per-screen average, the best in the top ten, and great critical reaction expect Wild Things to spend a long time in the New Zealand charts.
Another new release, Zombieland, opened in third place. The Woody Harrison led zomedy bit into $232,000 and should benefit from a lack of competition over the coming weeks with the only real horror threat coming in the New Year with Paranormal Activity. The third of the weekend’s new releases opened in fourth with Eric Bana’s The Time Traveler’s Wife. Collecting a moderate $228,000 the film benefited from the strong source material and the strength of its cast, although Eric Bana was out of his usual dramatic comfort zone, for his co-star Rachael McAdams this kind of film is her bread-and-butter.
Dropping out of second place was the apocalyptical disaster movie 2012. The film has performed exceptionally well around the world and New Zealand is no exception with the John Cusack flick taking in over $2.5 Million already and well on its way to being one of the biggest films of the year.
Slipping alarmingly into sixth place was the family animated film Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs which collected another $120,000. Animated features like Cloudy tend to have reasonably moderate drops before showing increased activities as the school term finishes, but only if they still manage to hold onto theatres, something that the Sony Pictures film might struggle to do.
Ricky Gervais and The Invention of Lying slid into seventh position. Falling 50%, the former Office star has faced overwhelmingly negative critical reaction and will be hoping for a better performance on DVD. My Sister’s Keeper had its largest drop so far as The Time Traveler’s Wife stole a large chunk of its audience away. Nevertheless the Cameron Diaz tearjerker has already outperformed expectations.
A Christmas Carol dropped into ninth but has now started shedding theatres and should fall out of the top ten completely next weekend. The final new entry in the top ten was Matt Damon’s The Informant which cracked the top despite only playing in 12 theatres. Averaging a reasonable $3000, the edgy comedy should benefit from great word-of-mouth and may hang on to the tenth spot again next week.
Next week should see the end of the reign of Edward as king of the box office, a reign that might be ended by a New Zealand film of all things. Under The Mountain, the much loved Maurice Gee books finally makes its way to the big screen with one of the biggest Kiwi pushes of recent years. But of more interest will be the day-and-date opening of Hong Kong blockbuster The Storm Warriors. Opening on a mere 7 screens, the martial arts/CGI hybrid has a great chance to crack the top ten with its ballistic film-making and pure entertainment.
