The Hobbit takes the Aussie box office two weekends running
Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug has topped the Australian box office for the first weekend of the year. The film opened locally on Boxing Day and made $14.4m on its first weekend. That figure more than halved this weekend as the film took just $6.1m. The Desolation of Smaug opened in the US on December 13 and has grossed $654.4m worldwide to date. It was made with an estimated budget of US$250m.
The second highest earner this weekend was Disney’s animated feature Frozen. It made $4.8m and also opened on Boxing Day. Last weekend it grossed $6.05m.
Two Australian films continue to hold a place in the box office top 20. Jonathan Teplitsky’s The Railway Man which also opened on December 26 made $1.02m over the weekend. Distributed by Transmission Films, it played on 120 screens and has made $3.08m to date. The film stars Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth and was made on a reported budget of $26m.
Watch the trailer for The Railway Man:
The second Australian film in the top 20 is Umbrella Entertainment’s Backyard Ashes. It opened on November 7 and has made $266,203 locally taking $12,143 this weekend. The film had an estimated budget of $300,000.
THE BOX OFFICE TOP 20
| Title (Distributor) | Weekend B/O | Screens | Total B/O |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug (Wb) | $6,155,039 | 631 | $25,762,503 |
| Frozen (Disney) | $4,814,404 | 450 | $15,931,614 |
| The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty (Fox) | $2,717,686 | 267 | $8,113,744 |
| Anchorman 2 (Paramount) | $2,272,834 | 378 | $13,932,055 |
| Walking With Dinosaurs 3d (Fox) | $1,526,896 | 381 | $2,059,159 |
| August: Osage County (Roadshow) | $1,440,545 | 217 | $1,846,783 |
| Philomena (Eone /hopscotch) | $1,318,769 | 121 | $4,205,979 |
| American Hustle (Roadshow) | $1,244,987 | 248 | $8,949,624 |
| The Railway Man (Transmission) | $1,029,749 | 120 | $3,089,627 |
| The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (Roadshow) | $838,248 | 161 | $37,493,322 |
| Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2 (Sony) | $731,334 | 243 | $10,182,206 |
| The Gilded Cage (Palace) | $129,167 | 20 | $607,667 |
| Dhoom 3 (Mindblowing Films) | $81,191 | 21 | $1,677,174 |
| Gravity (Wb) | $37,047 | 13 | $20,990,088 |
| Great White Shark 3d (Imax) | $28,949 | 1 | $52,957 |
| Delivery Man (Disney) | $21,922 | 11 | $3,349,071 |
| Blue Jasmine (Eone /hopscotch) | $19,814 | 4 | $6,186,222 |
| Ender's Game (Icon) | $17,292 | 12 | $2,548,404 |
| Hidden Universe 3d (Imax) | $12,434 | 2 | $491,220 |
| Backyard Ashes (Umbrella Ent.) | $12,143 | 6 | $266,203 |
Data courtesy of the MPDAA.
