| Date | |
|---|---|
| Author | Mia Blakeney |
Box Office Round-up
After receiving eight Oscar nominations on Thursday, A Complete Unknown, James Mangold’s biopic of Bob Dylan, held on to the top spot, adding £1.7m, down 35% from last week. That takes its total after 10 days in cinemas to £5.9m and the film is one of the favourites for Best Picture at the Oscars, so this one could be around in cinemas for a while.
Mufasa: The Lion King stayed in second, adding £1.4m, down just 16% from last weekend. That takes its total after six weekends in cinemas to £28m, and it has now overtaken the final total of 2023’s The Little Mermaid (£27.4m), and it’s just £9m behind the final total of 2019’s Aladdin (£37.2m).
Sonic The Hedgehog 3 added £875k in third, down just 19% from last weekend, which takes its total to £23.3m. It’s now just £3.7m behind the £27m Sonic The Hedgehog 2 finished on.
This week’s highest new entry is Mel Gibson’s Flight Risk, which opened in fourth with £811k. This reminded me of another January release, 2023’s Plane, which opened with £1.2m in January of that year. Flight Risk would have got a bit closer to that figure were it not for the storms on Friday.
Nosferatu continued its terrific box office run, adding £1.1m over the weekend which was enough to see it cross the £10m mark in fourth, and it now sits on £10.9m. In terms of horror films last year, it has now surpassed A Quiet Place: Day One (£10m) and is closing in on Alien: Romulus (£13.4m).
After it received 10 Oscar nominations on Thursday, The Brutalist rounded out the top five, opening with a £755k, which includes £50k from previews. Not only is this impressive for a film that’s well over three hours long, it also opened at 171 locations this weekend, by far the fewest in the top 15 (for context, Flight Risk opened at 525 locations), so screenings for The Brutalist were BUSY. Set to be a mainstay across awards season, this one could be around for a while.
Outside of the top five, the first of two Steven Soderbergh (Traffic, Ocean’s trilogy, Erin Brockovich) films in cinemas over the next few months, Presence, opened in 10th with £365k, which includes £72k from previews.
Next Weekend
Companion is a mysterious thriller starring Sophie Thatcher (Heretic). A billionaire's death sets off a chain of events for Iris (Thatcher) and her friends during a weekend trip to his lakeside estate. At the time of writing it has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 90%.
Hard Truths is the latest film from British filmmaking legend Mike Leigh (Secrets & Lies, Naked). Set in London, it follows the plight of a depressed and nay-saying woman (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) and the relationship with her jovial sister Chantelle (Michele Austin).
Saturday Night tells the story of what happened behind the scenes in the 90 minutes leading up to the first broadcast of Saturday Night Live in 1975.
The Buzz
Death Of A Unicorn is a darkly comic thriller from A24, starring Jenna Ortega, Paul Rudd, Téa Leoni, and Will Poulter. Father-Daughter duo Riley and Elliot (Ortega and Rudd) hit a unicorn with their car and bring it to the wilderness retreat of a mega-wealthy pharmaceutical CEO. This is another film from A24, who have cultivated such a strong brand that people want to see their films on the big screen, regardless of the genre. In cinemas at the moment they have We Live In Time, Babygirl and The Brutalist, and in the last year they’ve seen success with Civil War and Heretic. All their films play strongly with a metropolitan 16-34 audience and Death Of A Unicorn looks to be accessible but with an idiosyncratic edge. It’s in cinemas on 4 April.
Across The Pond
Flight Risk opened in the top spot in North America with $12m. Mufasa: The Lion King posted a great hold in second, falling just 28% to $8.7m, taking its total to $221.1m, while One Of Them Days posted a similar hold, falling just 32% to $8m in third, which takes its total to $25.1m. Sonic The Hedgehog 3 added $5.5m in fourth for a new total of $226.1m, and Moana 2 rounded out the top five, adding $4.3m for a new total of $450m.