PLANES ascend into Peak Position

16 Sep 2013

SINGAPORE - Disney's PLANES ascend to the top spot after debuting at no. 2 last weekend. It's a rare feat for any film to climb to no. 1, and the last film to do so was LES MISERABLES earlier this year. However, PLANES managed to snag the top spot with only US$272,025 - the lowest figure for a no. 1 film in 20 months. Back in early 2012, CONTRABAND debut at no. 1 with just US$190,963. The aero animated toon pic has now picked up US$796,747 to date.

The highest debut of the week is RIDDICK, which commands a monstrous US$17,806 screen average for a scorching US$231,481 total from just 13 screens. Add in sneak previews and the total for the Vin Diesel headlined threequel stands at US$270,148.

Other debuts this week include THE FROZEN GROUND (US$104,867); THE BLING RING (US$49,819); THE WAY, WAY BACK (US$35,085); AFTERSHOCK (US$34,594), THE ENGLISH TEACHER (US$8,280) and A GOOD OLD FASHIONED ORGY (US$4,839). Two Japanese films released exclusively on two screens at Filmgarde - LIBRARY WARS and SHIELD OF STRAW are unranked without any available figures.

THE ENGLISH TEACHER, a comedy starring Julianne Moore is turning out to be one of the biggest flops of the year with a screen average debut of US$1,035. This year, only three other films performed worst in this category: The Channing Tatum comedy TEN YEARS (US$395); the sci-fi animated adventure ESCAPE FROM PLANET EARTH (US$696) and the Thai horror COUNTDOWN (US$907).

PERCY JACKSON: SEA OF MONSTERS which reigned for 2 weeks on top dip 53.7% in its third weekend. It becomes the 19th film this year to cross US$2m. Its total tally now stands at US$2,035,168. A finish in the range of US$2.23m is likely, which would put the fantasy adventure flick slightly ahead of PERCY JACKSON & THE OLYMPIANS: THE LIGHTNING THIEF, which grossed US$2,101,203 back in 2010.

Meanwhile, ILO ILO 爸妈不在家 and THAT GIRL IN PINAFORE 我的朋友，我的同学，我爱过的一切 both leap past GHOST CHILD 鬼仔 to become the 3rd and 4th highest grossing domestic films of 2013. ILO ILO's total now stands at US$514,788; while THAT GIRL IN PINAFORE has collected US$430,099 so far. The top 2 domestic films of 2013 are AH BOYS TO MEN 2 新兵正传 II (US$6,366,469) and TAXI! TAXI! 德士当家 (US$1,168,419).

Overall, this weekend which wraps up the one week school break sees the lowest box office figures for 2013 to date. US$1,438,091 worth of tickets were sold, down 27.1% from the last weekend and a 33.66% dip from the same frame a year ago when RESIDENT EVIL: RETRIBUTION claimed the no.1 spot.

[Side Note: Box Office Mojo ranks RIDDICK as the no. 4 film of the weekend, as published here, while the domestic body CFEA ranks RIDDICK as no.2, as published here.  One look at the figures on BOM and my guess is that CFEA's final numbers for RIDDICK include sneak previews from the previous weekend]