Australia Does Not Celebrate Thanksgiving
We hate to say we told you so, but Australia—Baz Luhrmann's sweepy weepy about his homeland in the 1940's—is not doing so well at the ol' box office. Nikki Finke reports that it's basically tanking, ceding top honors to such unambitious, unartsy fare as the darkening Twilight and this weekend's most likely top dog (and we mean dog), Four Christmases.
That Reese Witherspoon/Vince Vaughn laff riot will likely haul in some $47 million over the 5-day holiday weekend, while the $129 million-budgeted Australia will likely drum up a lowly $18 million, having earned a paltry $2.265 million on its opening day (Wednesday). And, perhaps more embarrassingly, word has it that the slapdash new James Bond film is outpacing Australia... in Australia. Which is grim! Studio Fox heralds Luhrmann's big overseas appeal, naturally (foreigners love weird melodramatic shit!), but this picture had high American Oscar hopes and now... sigh. They appear to have fizzled in just three days. Bad news for Fox, bad news for Jackman, and really bad news for Kidman, who desperately needed a hit.
And, honestly? We're kinda disappointed too. We had high hopes.