’Straight Outta Compton’ tops Australian box office

Universal Pictures’ biopic of seminal US rap group NWA was the top grossing film in its debut weekend in Australia.

Straight Outta Compton topped the weekend’s box office with $4.528m on 323 screens - an average take of $14,000 per screening. The film beat out US box office hit Southpaw by over $3.8m. The film starring 50 Cent and Jake Gyllenhaal came in at #2, pullinh $712,667 on 207 screens over the weekend.

Straight Outta Compton was a box office smash in its opening weekend in the US, grossing US$60.2 million last month. It took in US$24.2 million in its first day with screenings in 2,754 North American theatres.

The film, the sixth #1 debut for Universal Pictures, was made for US$29 million. The soundtrack Compton: A Soundtrack by Dr. Dre was released as a two-week exclusive on Apple Music and was streamed 25 million times during its first week. Upon its official release, it hit #1 on Australia's ARIA chart and in the UK and #2 on the Billboard 200.

The film was directed by F Gary Gray, produced by Dr. Dre and Ice Cube, and features Ice Cube’s son O’Shea Jackson Jr as his father, Corey Hawkins as Dr Dre, Jason Mitchell as Eazy-E, Aldis Hodge as MC Ren and Neil Brown Jr as DJ Yella.

Prior to Straight Outta Compton’s successful first weekend in Australia, the film had already broken the record for the biggest opening ever for a musical biopic. It doubled the earnings of previous winner Walk the Line, which opened in 2005 and made $22.3 million. Compton also beat out rap movie debuts as Eminem's 8 Mile ($51.2 million in 2002) and the 2009 Notorious B.I.G. story Notorious ($20.5 million).

Universal Pictures has another two films in the Top 20 highest grossing films (in Australia) list. Trainwreck, came in at #9 and grossed $332,232 from 213 screenings over the weekend and Minions came in at #20, grossing $64,321 from 115 screenings.

See below for the Top 20 (source: Mumbrella)