In its third weekend in cinemas The Passion Of The Christ had to suffer being pushed down into second place by another Icon film, The Butterfly Effect, but not much separated them.

The Butterfly Effect's first four-day cinema outing took A$1,341,092 from 172 screens while The Passion took A$1,301,464 from 158 screens.

But cinemas showing Mel Gibson's labour of love were still the most crowded in Australia, judging by its screen average of A$8,237, although just A$5 behind this figure was Roadshow's The Girl With The Pearl Earring. It grossed A$337,513 from only 41 screens in its first weekend to claim the seventh spot.

There were four other openers in the top 20. Hoyts' House Of 1000 Corpses (10th) grossed A$268,127 from 81 screens, Roadshow's The Big Bounce (11th) grossed A$178,907 from 96 screens, Palace's Plots With A View (15th) grossed A$149,283 from 40 screens, and 20th Century Fox's Thirteen (19th) grossed A$79,564 from only 15 screens.