| Date | |
|---|---|
| Author | Zoe Aresti |
The Weekend Round-up
Assassin’s Creed ended Rogue One: A Star Wars Story’s three-week stay at the top, kicking off its run with £5.3m. After it opened on New Year’s Day that figure includes £3.4m in previews, but it’s already grossed almost enough to beat the final total of the last big video game adaptation, Warcraft: The Beginning, which finished on £6.1m.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story fell to second but once again delivered the biggest Friday to Sunday total of £3.3m. It has now grossed £59.7m and is the 13th biggest film in UK history, just behind Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (£61.1m)
Fantasy drama, A Monster Calls, debuted in third with £1.9m, which includes £1.1m from previews, after opening on New Year’s Day. Director, Juan Antonio Bayona’s last film, The Impossible, opened on New Year’s Day 2013 and delivered £4m in its opening weekend.
Martin Scorsese’s religious epic, Silence, opened in fourth with £1.5m, which includes £860k in previews. The only Scorsese feature film in the last 10 years to gross less than £6m was Hugo in 2011, so Silence will need some strong holds to beat that.
Passengers completed the top five but had a strong hold, falling just 28% to £1.4m. On Saturday it crossed the £10m mark and now sits on £10.5m.
Outside of the top five, Moana in sixth also had a strong hold, falling 28% to £1.2m, which brings its total to £16.4m. It has now surpassed Disney’s big animation from last Christmas, The Good Dinosaur, which finished its run with £15.1m.
Overall the box office was up 3% from last weekend and up 16% from the same weekend last year, when the top four films were Star Wars: The Force Awakens, The Hateful Eight, Daddy’s Home and The Danish Girl.
Next Weekend
La La Land picked up a record seven Golden Globes last night, and it has been doing terrific business on limited release in the US. It’s also the clear favourite going into next month’s Oscars. It has been previewing in four Central London cinemas this week (Picturehouse Central, Cineworld Haymarket, Vue Leicester Square and Curzon Mayfair) and opens nationwide on Thursday 12 January. Don’t miss it.
On a great weekend for new releases, Manchester by the Sea is out on Friday and is set to be one of the very best films released this year. Casey Affleck stars as a man who is asked to take care of his teenage nephew after the boy's father dies. Affleck won the Golden Globe for Best Actor on Sunday and the film will be a major Oscars contender.
Ben Affleck is once again behind and in front of the camera, following up the Oscar-winning Argo with Live by Night. It’s a story set in the Prohibition Era and is centred around a group of individuals and their dealings in the world of organised crime. It also stars Zoe Saldana, Sienna Miller, Elle Fanning and Brendan Gleeson and is in cinemas on Friday.
Underworld: Blood Wars is the fifth film in the series that stars Kate Beckinsale as vampire death dealer, Selene, who fights to end the eternal war between the Lycan clan and the vampire faction that betrayed her.
The Bye Bye Man is a horror about three friends who stumble upon the horrific origins of the Bye Bye Man, a mysterious figure they discover is the root cause of the evil behind man's most unspeakable acts.
The Buzz
Hidden Figures expanded nationwide in the US at the weekend and ended up taking the top spot from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. It’s a genuine crowd-pleaser about a team of African-American women who provide NASA with important mathematical data needed to launch the programme's first successful space missions. It’s out in the UK on 17 February.
Across The Pond
Hidden Figures took the top spot, delivering $22.8m for a new cume of $25.8m. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story fell to second, adding $22m, which brings its cume to $477.3m. Sing fell to third, adding $20.7m for a new cume of $214.5m. Underworld: Blood Wars opened in fourth with $13.7m, which is the lowest opening for any film in the Underworld series. La La Land completed the top five, adding $10.1m for a new cume of $51.8m.