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Joker takes almost $10m across Australian box office in first weekend

Joker has landed with a bang in the Australian box office, taking almost $10m across its first weekend. Directed by The Hangover Trilogy’s Todd Phillips, the movie stars Joaquin Phoenix as the titular villain from the DC Comic universe.

Airing across 556 screens, the film took $9.746m for its first weekend, adding to a global taking of USD$248m to date.

Joker has performed well across the Australian box office, taking just under $10m in its first weekend

Joker has been mostly well received by critics, although some questioned whether audiences still crave films about violent villains, and queried its idealisation of white male violence. The film made headlines upon its release when journalists were restricted from red carpet events around it and extra security was put in place over fears of cinema shootings in the same style as the 2012 Aurora, Colorado massacre during The Dark Knight which saw 12 people killed and 70 injured.

The new Joker film toppled Ride Like A Girl which took $1.7m last weekend to top the box office. The Australian-made movie took another $1.722m across the weekend, giving it a running total of $4.59m.

The spring school holidays had a profound impact on the box office with three of the top five films children’s titles which increased on their takings last week. Universal’s animated picture Abominable grew by 45%, jumping to second place with a $1.722m taking for its third week out, while The Angry Birds Movie 2 rose 37% for its fourth week – a taking of $1.5m.

Dora and the Lost City of Gold rounded out the top five, taking just over $1m for its third week across 301 screens, an increase of 27% on last week.

Downton Abbey held onto the top 10 in sixth place with another $907,798 to its total of $11.3m. It was followed by Good Boys which took $648,675 across 223 screens and War which landed $571,740 for its second weekend. The Indian Hindi-language action thriller was directed by Siddharth Anand and has been smashing records in the Indian box office.

Ad Astra, the Brad Pitt-fronted sci-fi flick, took another $546,856 across its third week – a 55% drop from the week prior to land it in ninth place. Chinese drama film My People, My Country rounded out the top 10 with $514,636 across 35 screens.

Title (Distributor) Weekend B/O Screens Total B/O
The Joker (Wb) $9,746,924 556 $9,746,924
Abominable (Universal) $1,722,068 299 $6,237,056
Ride Like A Girl (Transmission) $1,661,111 273 $5,282,044
The Angry Birds Movie 2 (Sony) $1,500,757 355 $7,589,808
Dora And The Lost City Of Gold (Paramount) $1,071,150 301 $4,935,163
Downton Abbey (Universal) $907,798 277 $11,304,144
Good Boys (Universal) $648,675 223 $4,584,274
War (Mindblowing Films) $571,740 55 $702,420
Ad Astra (Fox) $546,856 279 $4,992,917
My People, My Country (Cmc Pictures) $514,636 35 $999,940
Paw Patrol: Ready Race Rescue (Paramount) $453,802 232 $576,381
Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark (Universal) $432,343 208 $1,784,125
It: Chapter 2 (Wb) $334,280 246 $15,273,456
The Captain (Magnum) $292,086 17 $562,948
Uglydolls (Roadshow) $211,654 248 $916,260
Rambo: Last Blood (Roadshow) $174,904 197 $2,302,681
Syeraa Narasimha Reddy (Southern Star) $165,817 39 $360,018
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (Sony) $161,921 94 $20,970,579
The Lion King (2019) (Disney) $104,460 67 $63,815,509
Roger Waters: Us + Them (Trafalgar) $74,392 103 $163,894
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