South debuts south of the top 10
Shirley Barret’s period dramedy South Solitary (Icon) opened with $132,240 (36 screens, average $3,673, budget $6.5m), debuting at #10, while Claire McCarthy’s The Waiting City (Hopscotch) got closer to the half-million mark, adding $77,130 (31 screens, average $2,488, budget $3m) for a total of $470,409.
Animal Kingdom (Madman) is running out of steam and, after four weeks at #10, it has finally left the top 10. It stands at $4,641,963, prior to its August 13 release in the US and October 13 launch on DVD and Blu-ray.
While Inception (Roadshow) proved the strenght of its director (Christopher Nolan) and cast (Leonardo Di Caprio and rising stars Joseph-Gordon Levitt and Ellen Page) by retaining the top position, Australian director Robert Luketic also proved his box office power, with his fifth film Killers – starring Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl – debuting at number 2.
The rest of the top 10 contained other familiar titles:
| 1 | Inception | Roadshow | $5,992,401 |
| 2 | Killers | Roadshow | $2,050,500 |
| 3 | Knight & Day | Fox | $1,030,042 |
| 4 | Toy Story 3 | Disney | $1,006,253 |
| 5 | The Twilight Saga: Eclipse | Hoyts | $744,290 |
| 6 | The Karate Kid | Sony | $562,293 |
| 7 | Shrek Forever After | Paramount | $271,232 |
| 8 | Grown Ups | Sony | $267,526 |
| 9 | Predators | Fox | $229,260 |
| 10 | South Solitary | Icon | $132,240 |
