Lego Movie tops Aussie box office for its opening week

We love it when distributors slice and dice box office results and this week Roadshow Films is the latest to tout a “best ever” opening for its hit holiday feature, The Lego Movie.

The film took the top spot at the Australian box office on its opening week – Thu Apr 3 to Wed Apr 9 – grossing grossed $8.79 million across 281 locations (537 screens), beating out Disney/Marvel’s superhero actioner, Captain America.

According to Roadshow it broke “the Australian record for the largest Easter opening week ever for an animated film” – but we thought Easter was next weekend, not last week.

Nevertheless its a great achievement for the Warner Bros. film, which was made entirely at digital production house, Animal Logic, on the Fox lot in Sydney, with Village Roadshow Picture helping back the film’s estimated $70 million budget. Its already taken over $400 million worldwide to date making it one of the most profitable studio films of recent times.

Roadshow Films managing director Joel Pearlman said: “The amazing Australian result clearly shows the film has proved popular with a wide mainstream audience – not just young children, but children of all ages! We are thrilled with the response and anticipate the movie’s success to build throughout the school holidays.”

Warner Bros has set a release date of May 26, 2017 for the Lego Movie 2 but its unclear if Village Roadshow Pictures will be part of the funding equation for the sequel. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Warner Bros wants to keep the financing in house as its proved such a profitable film.