This Week At The Box Office: Growing Signs of Life

This week is a promising one: we have some nice debuts, more screenings, and better numbers all around, but drive-ins may prove necessary for a while.

Well, numbers are up this weekend at the box office, and it’s not just because people are starting to come out; more films are showing on more screens, as cinema operators are gaining confidence that the audience demand is there. With COVID-19 rearing its ugly head again, especially in Victoria, this confidence may prove fragile. 

The Invisible Man, which has kept its spot at the top of the charts, saw a 30 per cent increase in takings, showing on 67 screens, up from 33 last weekend. The screen averages are still understandably low (for The Invisible Man – $966 per screen, for a total weekend taking of $64,742), as cinema audiences socially distance, but across the board, more screenings are generating more revenue, showing some cinemagoers are undeterred by health concerns.  

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Jini Maxwell is a curator at ACMI, and an award-winning videogame journalist. They curated ‘Honk: Untitled Goose Exhibition,’ co-curate Gay24, a monthly film night showcasing rare, radical and archival queer films. Jini is currently co-curating a major videogame exhibition at ACMI.