| Date | |
|---|---|
| Author | Tom Linay |
The Weekend Round-up
- The Nun conjured up a huge £4.1m to top the box office this weekend, a figure which includes £664k from Thursday previews. Remarkably, that’s the biggest opening for a film in The Conjuring universe, vastly improving upon the £2.8m The Conjuring 2: The Enfield Case opened with in 2016. Last summer Annabelle: Creation, the most recent film in the universe opened with £2m, so The Nun has blown that out of the (holy) water. The Conjuring 2 is currently the biggest performing film in the series, finishing its run on £11m, so that’s the target for The Nun.
- After three weeks in the top spot, Christopher Robin dropped to second but still posted £884k, a drop of just 25%. That takes its total to £12.4m and it’s now the 18th biggest film released in 2018.
- BlacKkKlansman again posted the best hold in the top 15, falling just 14% to £793k. After three weeks on release that takes its total to £4.5m and proves that late-August/September can be a productive time for potential awards hopefuls.
- Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again has been a fixture in the top 5 for almost two months now and this weekend it came in fourth, falling 26% to £727k. That takes its total to £63.2m and with the sing-a-long version unleased on the UK public from Sunday, it could still get to the first film’s final total of £68.8m.
- The Meg completed the top five, falling 31% to £612k. That was enough to take it over the £15m mark and it now sits on £15.1m, a terrific performance.
- Outside of the top five, Black 47 opened in 10th with £399k (including £112k from previews) purely from screenings in Ireland. That’s the biggest opening of an Irish film in Ireland since Brooklyn in 2015. The highly rated American Animals could only open in 13th with £347k, which includes £106k from previews.
Overall, the box office was up 14% from last weekend and down 26% from the same weekend last year, when the top films were It, American Made, Dunkirk and The Emoji Movie.
Next Weekend
- The Predator is the latest film in the erratic sci-fi series. When a young boy accidentally triggers the universe's most lethal hunters' return to Earth, only a ragtag crew of ex-soldiers and a disgruntled science teacher can prevent the end of the human race. It’s in cinemas on Wednesday.
- Crazy Rich Asians is the US box office sensation. Based on a global bestseller, it’s a romantic comedy that follows native New Yorker Rachel Chu to Singapore to meet her boyfriend's family.
- King Of Thieves is a true crime film about a crew of retired crooks who pull off a major heist in London's jewellery district. What starts off as their last criminal hurrah quickly turns into a brutal nightmare due to greed.
- Superfly is a remake of the 1972 blaxploitation film Super Fly. With retirement on his mind, a successful young drug dealer sets up one last big job, while dealing with trigger-happy colleagues and the police.
The Buzz
Halloween is a sequel to the classic 1978 horror film and pretends that all other Halloween films never happened. Jamie Lee Curtis returns as Laurie Strode who comes to her final confrontation with Michael Myers, the masked figure who has haunted her since she narrowly escaped his killing spree on Halloween night four decades ago. It premiered at the Toronto Film Festival over the weekend and has been warmly received. The Playlist loved it, praising director, David Gordon Green and calling it ‘thrilling, atmospheric, and brutally violent, Green delivers exactly what fans want from the series and then some.’ The Hollywood Reporter said ‘the picture has a good shock or two up its sleeve before getting to Laurie's armoured, booby-trapped home, and once it's there, it surprises us again.’ While Entertainment Weekly said it’s ‘big, funny, scary, squishy, super-meta sequel that brings it all back to the iconic 1978 original.’ It's in cinemas on 19 October.
Across The Pond
The Nun opened in the top spot with a sensational $53.8m. That is by far the biggest opening for a film in The Conjuring universe and is the second largest September opening ever. Crazy Rich Asians came in second, adding $13.4m, which takes its total to $135.7m. Peppermint opened in third with $13.1m, which is just behind the opening of John Wick. The Meg, fell to fourth, adding $6m, which takes its total to $131.6m, while Searching completed the top five, adding $4.6m for a new total of $14.7m.