Box Office: Finding Dory on track for highest-grossing animation ever

Ghostbusters opens with $4.85m, Dory over $45m, Wilderpeople closes in on $10m

Finding Dory now #1 movie of 2016, soon to knock Aussie classic off top 10 all time list

Lots of big numbers and milestones to report on this week. The only thing that wasn’t so huge over the weekend was the top 20 movies total with $18.29m which is the smallest weekend gross in six weeks since the end of May. No single movie managed a screen average in five figures, which also last happened six weeks ago, although the top three movies all had screen averages over $9,000. Movies ranked #2 through #7 all saw their takings down over 40% on their previous weekend.

#1 Ghostbusters $4.85m

The remake of the 1984 comedy classic with Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones and Kate McKinnon leads the pack with a screen average of $9,539 from its 493 screens. The Ghostbusters remake narrowly missed top spot in the US where it ranked #2 behind the second weekend of The Secret Life of Pets which won’t open here until the next school holidays on September 8.

#2 The Legend of Tarzan $2.44m

Takings were down 43% on its opening weekend of $4.29m with the movie set to reach $10m some time during its third week. Tarzan shed 63 screens on its second weekend, down to 271 giving it a screen average just over $9,000.

#3 Finding Dory $2.43m

Finding Dory looks like being the highest-grossing animation movie ever, soon to perhaps overhaul Shrek 2. The Pixar movie has now passed $45m here and although takings will slow post-school holidays, it should have no problem smashing $50m some time very soon. To outperform Shrek it will need to reach $50.38m. Finding Dory will very soon dislodge the only Australian movie on the top 10 all-time list – Crocodile Dundee – when it reaches $47.70m. Finding Dory is now the highest-grossing movie of 2016, overtaking Deadpool on $43.26m.

On its fifth weekend, Finding Dory disappeared off 192 screens leaving it with a screen average of $9,297 from its remaining 262 screens.

#4 The BFG $1.93m

The Walt Disney movie occupied 355 screens over the weekend, second only to Ghostbusters, yet it has a screen average of $5,443 that ranks it #6. The film has taken over $12m after three weekends.

#5 Central Intelligence $1.67m

The comedy caper narrowly trails The BFG this week, but it has a slightly higher total of $13.22m after three weekends. Its 276 screens give it a screen average of $6,052.

Best of the rest: Hunt for the Wilderpeople continues to perform well with the New Zealand action adventure/comedy about to crack $10m in total some time next week, its ninth since release. It took just over half a million on the weekend and it remains on 144 screens.

Just two other new releases on the weekend:

Our Kind of Traitor, the thriller based on a John le Carré novel from StudioCanal, launched on 53 screens taking $275,000

Sing Street, the musical comedy-drama with a great 80s pop soundtrack from Roadshow, opened on 41 screens taking $120,000.

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