| Date | |
|---|---|
| Author | Mia Blakeney |
Box Office Round-up
As we often mention in this round-up, the horror genre is in a golden period, both critically and commercially, and the latest commercial hit is Five Nights At Freddy’s. Based on a video game series created by Scott Cawthon, the big screen adaptation opened with a terrific £5.4m, which includes a huge £2.2m from Wednesday and Thursday previews. In terms of horror in 2023, the three biggest titles are M3GAN (£7.3m), Scream VI (£7.8m), and Insidious: The Red Door (£8m) and it looks like Five Nights At Freddy’s is going to leave those for dead.
The big half-term family title Trolls Band Together fell to second but posted a strong hold, falling 19% to £2.5m. That takes its total after 10 days in cinemas to just over £9m and while it doesn’t look like matching the £25m total of the first film, it’s still the only major family film in cinemas for the next three and a half weeks until Wish is released on 24 November.
Martin Scorsese’s historic crime epic Killers Of The Flower Moon fell to third with £1.5m, which is a drop of 36% from last weekend. To date, it has grossed £5.6m and it has already outgrossed his 2011 film, Hugo (£5.6m). Next up, is his 2004 Howard Hughes biopic, The Aviator on £8.3m.
Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour fell to fourth with £1.2m, a drop of 48% from last weekend. That takes its total after three weekends in cinemas to £10.3m and it has now overtaken the final total of Michael Jackson’s This Is It (£9.7m) to become the highest grossing concert film of all-time, in fact it’s now the highest grossing event cinema release of all-time.
Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie rounded out the top five, adding £709k, a drop of just 12% from last weekend. That takes its total to £6.1m and it’s still £2.7m behind the last, and highest grossing, Paw Patrol film, The Paw Patrol Movie, which finished on £8.8m in 2021.
Outside of the top five, The Exorcist: Believer added £361k in sixth, which takes it over the £5m mark to £5.3m. The Great Escaper added £265k in seventh and after stellar midweek showings it is on £3.8m and has now surpassed the final total of The Unlikely Pilgrimage Of Harold Fry (£3.4m). The Creator has crossed the £6m mark in ninth.
Next Weekend
Bottoms is a comedy from Emma Seligman, who made a splash with her first film Shiva Baby. Two unpopular queer high school students (Rachel Sennott and Ayo Adebiri) start a fight club to have sex before graduation.
How To Have Sex is the debut film from Molly Manning Walker and won the Un Certain Regard prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Three British teenage girls go on a rites-of-passage holiday - drinking, clubbing and hooking up, in what should be the best summer of their lives.
The Royal Hotel is a thriller starring Julia Garner and Jessica Henwick as US backpackers Hanna and Liv who take a job in a remote Australian pub for some extra cash. They are confronted with a bunch of unruly locals and a situation that grows rapidly out of their control.
The Buzz
The Zone Of Interest is the latest film from one of the UK’s best filmmakers, Jonathan Glazer (Under The Skin, Birth, Sexy Beast). The commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel), and his wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller), strive to build a dream life for their family in a house and garden next to the camp. This premiered at the Cannes Film Festival back in May and is one of the best reviewed films of 2023 with a score of 95 on Metacritic. Total Film, The Telegraph, Time Out and the BBC all went five stars, with Robbie Collin from The Telegraph tweeting after seeing it ‘maybe eventually Jonathan Glazer will make a film that doesn’t immediately go onto a list of the best I’ve ever seen. Not today though!’ It’s expected to be a major contender at the Oscars and the BAFTAs and it’s in cinemas on 2 February 2024.
Across The Pond
Five Nights At Freddy’s opened in the top spot in North America too with an incredible $78m, the fifth biggest October opening of all-time. This is even more impressive when you consider it’s available to watch at home on Peacock too. Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour fell to second, adding $14.7m for a new total of $149.3m. Killers Of The Flower Moon added $9m in third which takes its total to $40.7m. Faith-based drama After Death opened in fourth with $5.1m and The Exorcist: Believer rounded out the top five, adding $3.1m for a new total of $59.4m.