| Date | |
|---|---|
| Author | Mia Blakeney |
Box Office Round-up
Avatar: The Way Of Water stayed in the top spot for the fifth successive weekend, adding £4.1m, a drop of 23% from last weekend. That takes its total after five weekends in cinemas to £63.7m, which places it in the top 25 films of all-time in the UK & Ireland, at number 22. It looks like getting well into the top 20 before the end of its run.
M3GAN was this weekend’s biggest new film, opening in second with £2.3m. In terms of 2022 horror that’s in the same ballpark as high profile sequels Scream (£2.4m) and Halloween Ends (£2.1m). Audiences seem happy too, as according to the PostTrak exit poll, audiences awarded M3GAN 4 stars out of 5 and a 82% Total Positive score, both well above the Horror average of 2.5 stars and 65%.
Third spot was taken by Empire Of Light, which opened with £1.7m, including £756k from previews after it opened on Monday. Sam Mendes is one of the most successful UK filmmakers and this looked like it could be this year’s big British awards contender, like Belfast last year which banked £15.6m, but it has not been well received by critics and it doesn’t look like winning any major awards.
Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody posted the best hold of any film in the top 10, falling just 21% to £1.1m, which takes its total to £8.2m. This is the third strong hold it’s posted in a row and it looks like it will get to £10m by the end of its run.
Roald Dahl’s Matilda The Musical rounded out the top five, adding £857k, a drop of 28% from last weekend. That takes its total to over £25m and it’s edging towards the final total of Elvis (£27.6m), the last big musical to cross £20m.
Outside of the top five, a couple Tamil-language films from India cracked the top 10. Varisu came in seventh with £648k, which includes £236k from previews, and Thunivu came in ninth with £273k, which includes £108k from previews.
Cate Blanchett is one of the two frontrunners for the Best Actress Oscar and BAFTA (along with Michelle Yeoh) and the film she stars in TÁR opened in eighth with £395k. Expect this one to be around for the next couple of months as the major awards are announced. The Oscars, the climax of this year’s awards season, takes place on 12 March.
The box office is up 12% from last weekend and up 49% from the same weekend last year.
Next Weekend
Babylon is the latest film from Damien Chazelle (Whiplash, La La Land) and stars Margot Robbie, Brad Pitt and Diego Calva. It’s a tale of outsized ambition and outrageous excess, tracing the rise and fall of multiple characters during an era of unbridled decadence and depravity in early Hollywood.
Alice, Darling stars Anna Kendrick as a young woman trapped in an abusive relationship who becomes the unwitting participant in an intervention staged by her two closest friends.
The Buzz
Titanic is one of the most popular films of all-time and this February it gets a 25th anniversary 3D re-release. Avatar: The Way Of Water (and the re-release of the original Avatar last September) proved that James Cameron films connect with the UK public like few others, and Titanic is set to prove that once again when it hits UK cinemas on 10 February. The last time the film got a major re-release in 2012, it grossed over £11m at the box office, so don’t be surprised if people get just as excited for this brand new remastered version in eye-popping 3D.
Across The Pond
Avatar: The Way of Water stayed in the top spot for a fifth consecutive weekend, adding $31.1m, a drop of 32% from last weekend, taking its total to a huge $562.9m. After its barnstorming opening last weekend, M3GAN posted a terrific hold, falling 41% to $17.9m, taking its 10 day total to $56.4m. Puss In Boots: The Last Wish continues to post sensational holds, falling just 1% to $13.4m. That’s more than it grossed on its opening weekend and to date it has banked $106.4m. A Man Called Otto increased its theatre count this weekend and added $12.6m, which takes its total to $18.8m. Gerard Butler thriller, Plane, opened in fifth with $10m.