Taken from
http://www.moviemarshal.com/
Not even Yoda could doubt the stunning victory at the Australian box office over the weekend as Star Wars: Attack of the Clones launched into stratospheric territory, ripping apart nearly every box office record in the book. The second entry of the epic George Lucas saga opened fire with a record-busting $11,967,380 over the regular four day Thursday to Sunday period. The highly anticipated opening easily crushed the previous record holder, The Fellowship of the Ring by more than $2 million. 2002 has become a boom season both in the U.S. and now in Australia with Spider-Man cracking the unprecedented $US100 million opening barrier with a 14% margin just three weeks ago in the U.S., and now with Star Wars: Attack of the Clones smashing through the local $10 million opening barrier for the first time with a 19.6% margin.
Star Wars: Attack of the Clones is the second episode of the most successful film franchise in history and follows the story of young Jedi Anakin Skywalker who is conflicted about his feelings for Senator Amidala and Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi's guidance at a time when unseen shifting forces threaten to tear apart the Republic. The light-sabre wielding Jedi's opened on a massive 457 screens, the second largest count ever behind only last years record of 476 set by Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Star Wars: Attack of the Clones averaged a staggering $26,187 per screen as sold out sessions were reported around the country, easily surpassing the previous record of $24,568 for a wide release film, funnily enough set by Star Wars: The Phantom Menace three years ago.
Breaking Star Wars: Attack of the Clones down reveals even more records to add to its highest average, highest weekend and highest opening weekend honours. Clones opened to $3.1 million on Thursday, the second largest ever opening day behind the $4.1 million Boxing Day holiday of Fellowship, and being a regular weekday counts as the largest ever non-holiday opening day. Friday saw sales dip by 25% to $2.3 million giving it a second place finish to the $2.4 million Friday of Fellowship. Clones set new records on Saturday as sales surged 52% to $3.5 million giving it the largest ever Saturday and the second largest day ever, eclipsing its own three day old record. Sales eased by just 14% on Sunday to $3 million, giving it the largest ever Sunday and allowing Clones a second, third and fourth place sweep for highest single days.
The highest ever weekend record has fallen three times now in the last 6 months with Potter's $9.25 million passing Menace's two and a half year record of $9.14 million by 1.2% last November. It took only five weeks for it to fall again when Fellowship's $9.75 million flew past the boy wizard by 5.4%. But this time around Clones made sure of it, trouncing Fellowship's five month record by a sizzling 22.7% and in doing so setting an amazing new milestone.
The opening of Star Wars: Attack of the Clones passed the opening of The Phantom Menace in Australia by a terrific 31%, this is almost right on par with the U.S. performance of Clones over Menace as the film also opened there this weekend a healthy 33% stronger than the original. When total four day comparisons are taken into account, Australia emerges the victor with a slightly stronger* four day opening weekend of 2.8%. When the regular Australian four day weekend vs. the U.S. three day weekends are compared, Australia stands a sweet 38.7% stronger*. However, this will likely change next weekend as in the U.S. Clones will get a larger boost than would otherwise be the case during the popular movie-going Memorial Day holiday weekend. In Australia Menace launched a few weeks from now this time three years ago so its second week was positioned to fall on the Queen's Birthday holiday weekend, in doing so it scored a record second frame that mirrored Menace's fortunes in the U.S. and still stands today. Two reasons account for Clones not adopting that path this time out, Lucas wanted a global launch for Episode II and as such had to conform to the optimal release strategy of the U.S. rather than what would be most profitable in Australia. Also, the other mega-blockbuster of the season, Spider-Man, has claimed Her Majesty's weekend as his own, being released the Thursday before the Monday holiday. Of course, it would have been Spidey that flinched first if Fox had really wanted that spot and a possible day and date U.S./Oz launch would have resulted for the web-slinger.
Attack of the Clones will find it hard to top the largest ever second weekend take without the aid of a long weekend holiday, but it stands a great chance of landing in second place, needing a fall of 50% or less to come in above Fellowship which dipped 40% in its second week to $5.87 million. Compared to my opening weekend projections Attack of the Clones did meet the forecast of a year besting result, but it flew way past that $9 million mark.
