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| Author | Zoe Aresti |
The Weekend Round-up
It’s now been out for five weeks but Finding Dory topped the box office once again, adding £1.5m bringing its total to £35.8m. As of Sunday it was the sixth biggest film of the year to date, but should jump at least three further places by the end of next weekend.
On a busy weekend for new entries, Bad Moms was the highest in second, opening with a rock solid £1.5m, which included £254k from previews.
Suicide Squad dropped to third, but another £1.3m takes its total to an impressive £30.6m, making it the eighth biggest film of 2016. It has also surpassed the lifetime total of Guardians Of The Galaxy (£28.5m) and is the eighth film of the year to cross the £30m mark, the same number as the whole of 2015.
War Dogs opened in fourth with £1m, which (including £13k from previews). There aren’t a host of obvious comparisons for the comedy-drama about two twenty-somethings who win a government contract to arm America's allies in Afghanistan, but it has a similar tone to The Big Short, which opened with £1.3m in January.
The third film in The Purge series, The Purge: Election Year completed the top five, kicking off its run with £808k, which is the lowest in the series. The first film, The Purge, opened with £1m in 2013 and the second, The Purge: Anarchy opened with £1.2m in 2014.
Outside of the top five, Jason Statham actioner, Mechanic: Resurrection, opened with £509k in 10th, and Pedro Almodovar drama, Julieta, opened with £356k in 13th.
Overall the box office was down 27% from last weekend but up 7% from the same weekend last year, when the top four films were Straight Outta Compton, Inside Out, Hitman: Agent 47 and Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation.
Next Weekend
After previewing to some success on Monday, Sausage Party opens nationwide on Friday. It’s an adult animation about how a sausage strives to discover the truth about his existence.
Morgan is a chilling sci-fi about an artificially created humanoid being that causes havoc for its creators. Kate Mara, Toby Jones, Brian Cox and Michelle Yeoh are in the eclectic cast.
Café Society is the latest from Woody Allen. Jesse Eisenberg stars as a young Bronx native, who moves to Hollywood in the 1930s, where he falls in love with the secretary (Kristen Stewart) of his powerful uncle, an agent to the stars. After returning to New York, he is swept up in the vibrant world of high society nightclub life.
Brotherhood opened on Monday and is the final film in Noel Clarke’s series, after Kidulthood and Adulthood. With Sam (Clarke) facing up to the new world he realises it also comes with new problems and new challenges that he must face that he knows will require old friends to help him survive new dangers.
The Buzz
La La Land opened the Venice Film Festival today and has been showered with praise by the assembled critics. Robbie Collin of The Telegraph said: "I'm honestly crying with happiness. That film no one makes any more? Damien Chazelle just made it." Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian called it: "wonderfully sweet, sad, smart - and Emma Stone has never been better." Kate Muir of The Times tweeted: "loved Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone in La La Land: heavenly and earthily comic musical." Variety said it's "a lavish song-and-dance musical that dares to swoon the old-fashioned way", and that ‘the film opens with one of the most extraordinary sequences in years". It opens in the UK on 13 January 2017, but it may be part of tomorrow’s London Film Festival programme launch.
Across The Pond
Don't Breathe opened in the top spot with a terrific $26.4m. The film reportedly has a budget of less than $10m, so that’s a great result. Suicide Squad dropped to second, but another $12.2m takes its cume to $283m. Kubo and the Two Strings dropped just 37.8% to $7.8m in third, which brings its total to $24.9m. Sausage Party added another $7.5m, for a cume of $80m, and Mechanic: Resurrection completed the top five, opening with $7.5m.