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The combination of Nicole Kidman and an iconic talking bear wasn.t so magical as Paddington opened in fourth spot in Australian cinemas last weekend.

The British comedy.s $1.4 million haul wasn.t terrible, and the total including previews and group bookings was an even more respectable $1.6 million.

But some exhibitors had higher expectations for the film which co-stars Kidman, Hugh Bonneville, Jim Broadbent, Sally Hawkins, Peter Capaldi and Ben Whishaw as the title character.s voice, given Nicole's publicity visit, positive reviews, the popularity of Michael Bond's books and the pedigree of the producer, Harry Potter's David Heyman.

In the battle for kids and family audiences Paddington is going head to head with Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. The Disney comedy, which stars Steve Carell, Jennifer Garner and Ed Oxenbould, scored $1 million in its second frame (easing by just 13%) , propelling its total to $3.3 million.

Hovering around the twenty-one to twenty-four feature film mark with at least a quarter of those films belonging to first time filmmakers, the Quinzaine des Realisateurs (a.k.a Directors’ Fortnight) has in the past couple of years, counted on a healthy supply of French, Spanish and Belgium produced film items, and has been geared towards the offbeat genre items as with last year’s edition curated by Edouard Waintrop and co. To be unveiled on the 22nd, as we attempted with our Critics’ Week predix, Blake Williams, Nicholas Bell and I (Eric Lavallee) are thinking out loud and hedging our bets on what the section might look like or what the programmers might be looking at for 2014. Here is our predictions overview:

Alleluia

Six years after presenting Vinyan at the Venice Film Festival, Fabrice Du Welz finally returns with potentially not one, but a pair of works for the ’14 campaign.