Bohemian Rhapsody lets Queen reign on their parade in Australia & US

Bohemian Rhapsody is not only creating a stampede at the box office (US $2255 million worldwide), but it’s also dragging Queen music back into the charts.

In Australia, the movie remained at #1 for a second week with US$6.20 million or A$8.58 million (still on 497 screens), after the first week generated over US$6 million (A$8.30 million).

Bohemian Rhapsody had by its second weekend grossed a total of $12,399,587 or A$17,169,883.

It slipped by 9% in its second week but generated more than double of any other movie on the list.

This week there are three Queen albums in the ARIA Top 5. The Bohemian Rhapsody soundtrack spends its second week at #2, held off the top spot by A Star is Born (the movie’s Australian gross is $24.02 million in four weeks).

Queen’s 15 times platinum Greatest Hits and The Ultimate Collection sit at #3 and #5 respectively – the highest concentration of Queen albums in the Top 5 album chart of any territory in the world.

The song ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ (originally on the A Night At The Opera album) is set to re-enter the ARIA Top 20 singles this week for the third time.

The single, originally released in 1975, made a comeback in 1992 thanks to that famous headbanging scene in the film Wayne’s World.

Six further Queen tracks are also in the Top 100.

Before the current Queen craze, the British band had generated in Australia fifteen Top 20 albums and twenty Top 40 singles.

According to Universal Music Australia, the biggest is the 15 times platinum, double diamond, 1 million plus sales enjoyed by Queen’s Greatest Hits.

The label pointed out, “It’s one of the top ten selling albums OF ALL TIME in Australia.

“In 2018, 38 years after its first release, it is in the Top 40 highest selling albums in Australia year-to-date.”

In the US, the movie, which cost $52 million to make, has by now generated $104,782,117.

It’s expected to wind up with an ultimate American gross of $165 million – -$170 million.

If that happens, says Forbes, it would make Bohemian Rhapsody the biggest musical biopic ever in the US.

Before that, a gross of $124 million will make it the biggest LGBTQIA-themed movie of all time.

The Bohemian Rhapsody soundtrack is now at #3 Stateside, its highest-charting album there in 38 years.

The ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ track has returned to the US Top 100 for a third time, a feat almost as impressive as Prince’s ‘1999’ which made four individual revisits.

As in Australia, the second time was in the wake of Wayne’s World.

Nielsen Music reports it re-entered the Top 100 at #33, sitting at #5 in Digital Song Sales (a 236% rise) while a 77% surge to 13.3 million saw it re-enter at #41 to Streaming Songs.

In the UK, Bohemian Rhapsody after a top draw at #1, fell last weekend to #2 with a weekend gross of £4.5 million (A$8 million)

Its full gross in its home country is £28.9 million ($51.9 million) and it’s the 10th best film of the year to date.