Box Office Report: Captain America is a marvel at #1 while LEGO builds a strong debut

This was a HUGE weekend at the Australian box office, with a very tight race between Marvel’s latest superhero offeringCaptain America: The Winter Soldier and worldwide hit The LEGO Movie. The Winter Soldier, which stars Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson and Samuel L. Jackson, took the top spot with just over $6 million, while The LEGO Movie came in very strong at #2 with $5.7 million. The fact that the #3 movie, Darren Aronofksy’s Noah, made over $2 million demonstrates the huge box office takings for the weekend. The #1 showing of The Winter Soldier again shows Marvel’s phenomenal power at the box office. It also shows that audiences are still full of goodwill from The Avengers two years ago. It will be interesting to see how the next Marvel film, the largely unfamiliar Guardians of the Galaxy, performs later this year.

On the bottom end of the chart are two incredible appearances. The first is the fact that the Oscar-winning Dallas Buyers Club has returned to the chart after dropping off for the past two weeks. The next is the appearance of Saudi Arabian/German film Wadjda. The films is the first feature ever shot entirely in Saudi Arabia and is the first feature-length film ever made by a female Saudi director. It’s great to see that the film is finding an audience in Australia!

The three major releases for this week provide something for everyone. There’s Muppets Most Wanted for families, young adult adaptation Divergent for teens, and Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel for mature viewers and the cinephiles amongst us (though it has proven to be a surprise hit in the US with a wide range of audiences). We can expect Divergent to come out on top of the three debuts, but all three will struggle to overtake The Winter Soldier or The LEGO Movie on next weekend’s chart. 

Read our reviews of Captain America: The Winter Soldier and The LEGO Movie here.

All figures from The Motion Picture Distributors Association of Australia and Box Office Mojo.

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