| Date | |
|---|---|
| Author | DCM |
| Categories | cinema |
The Weekend Round-up
Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl has been the literary phenomenon over the past 18 months, with seemingly 50% of tube users at any one time reading the book. The film adaptation hit cinemas on Thursday and with master-director, David Fincher pulling the strings, it was hugely anticipated. An opening weekend of £4.1m (including £517k from previews) is a strong start and the second 18-certificate film this year to open above £4m, after January’s The Wolf Of Wall Street (£4.6m). The obvious comparison for Gone Girl is David Fincher’s last film, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Another 18-cert literary adaptation, TGWTDT opened with £4.3m in 2012 but that included four days of previews, so Gone Girl’s opening is much more impressive. TGWTDT finished its run with £12.3m, so Gone Girl will be aiming for a total north of that.
For a while it looked like Dracula Untold was threatening to be another I, Frankenstein but a strong £1.7m opening proved emphatically that it isn’t. That total is comfortably more than the £1.3m I, Frankenstein managed in its entire run and Dracula Untold should easily surpass the final totals of both Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (£2.5m) and Hansel And Gretel: Witch Hunters (£3.6m).
Last week’s number one, The Equalizer fell to third with £1.2m, but a drop of 36% is a decent hold and the Denzel Washington action-thriller has now grossed £4.2m after 10 days on release. At some point in the next few days it will overtake 2 Guns’ final total of £4.5m. The Boxtrolls continued to perform strongly, falling just 13% to £983k for a cume of £6.1m. It’s now certain to eclipse ParaNorman’s final total of £6.3m and stands a good chance of beating Coraline’s £7.5m. What We Did On Our Holiday completed the top five with a terrific hold, falling just 8%, once previews are removed, to £728k for a cume of £2.1m.
Other notable performers were family sequel, Dolphin Tale 2 opening with £537k in sixth, which outstripped the first Dolphin Tale’s £435k debut. Two veterans of the weekly box office also had notable weekends with Guardians of the Galaxy crossing the £28m mark in ninth and Lucy crossing the £14m mark in eleventh.
On the strongest weekend since August, the box office was up 28% from last weekend and up 63% from the same weekend last year when Prisoners topped the box office and Sunshine On Leith was the highest new entry
Next Weekend
Hugh Grant returns to leading man roles on Wednesday in The Rewrite. It’s the fourth time he’s teamed up with director, Marc Lawrence, after Two Weeks Notice, Music and Lyrics and Did You Hear About The Morgans. On a busy weekend, The Conjuring spin-off, Annabelle, will be hoping to repeat its strong US performance (see below) and another new film hoping to repeat its US performance is The Maze Runner. Susan Sarandon stars in serial killer thriller, The Calling, rising star Jack O’Connell returns in diamond hard British thriller, ’71 and another family title hits the screens in Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.
The Buzz
There Will Be Blood and The Master director, Paul Thomas Anderson, on stage at the New York Film Festival at the weekend, said that he’d seen Interstellar and Christopher Nolan’s film is ‘f**k**g incredible’ (apologies for the blue language). IMAX tickets reportedly go on sale this Friday. Paul Thomas Anderson was on stage to discuss his upcoming film, Inherent Vice, which premiered at the festival. The first reviews for the film are now in and it received five stars from Robbie Collin in The Telegraph, while Time Out and The Guardian awarded it four stars.
Across The Pond
As it has in the UK, Gone Girl opened in the top spot, just, with $37.5m, which is director, David Fincher’s biggest ever opening, ahead of Panic Room in 2002. The audience was 60% female and 75% over 25. Annabelle opened with a fantastic $37.1m and the audience was 51% female, and 54% under the age of 25. Last week’s number one, The Equalizer fell 45% to third with $18.8m for a cume of $64.2m. The Boxtrolls fell 31% to $12m in fourth and after 10 days has grossed $32.1m. The Maze Runner completed the top five with $11.6m and now has a strong cume of $73.6m. The top 12 grossed over $141m, making it the biggest October weekend ever.