Mad Max: Fury Road debuts narrowly ahead of Pitch Perfect 2

2015 is on track to be cinema's biggest year of all time, with Australian box office up 19% YTD and admissions up 11%, reports Val Morgan. Box office for the top 20 movies this week was $16,473,595, up 2% on the previous weekend.

Mad Max: Fury Road has claimed top spot at the box office on its opening weekend, but it was a close contest. The fourth Mad Max movie from director George Miller was narrowly ahead of the second weekend of Pitch Perfect 2 which trailed the much-anticipated Mad Max release by less than $400,000 and finished with a better screen average.

Mad Max: Fury Road had the sixth-biggest opening weekend of 2015 on $6.19m with a screen average of $11,434 from its 542 screens.

The second weekend of Pitch Perfect 2 was #2 with $5.80m from 403 screens at an average of $14,408. The US comedy has raced to just over $18m before the end of its second full week.

The third of three movies over $1m was week four of The Avengers: Age Of Ultron with just over $2m as it closes in on $37m.

The second-biggest opening of the weekend was A Royal Night Out on 264 screens with $656,000.

Rounding out the top five was the third week of Unfriended with $368,000 which should just crack $3m next week.

Dropping out of the top five after seven weeks is Fast And Furious 7 with another $282,000 as it passes $43m to-date.