| Date | |
|---|---|
| Author | DCM |
| Categories | cinema |
The Weekend Round-up
Interstellar stayed in orbit this weekend despite a strong challenge from Benedict Cumberbatch and The Imitation Game. Christopher Nolan’s jaw-dropping sci-fi epic fell 29% to £3.8m and after ten days in cinemas has earned £12.1m. At the same stage in its run, Gravity was on £14.7m, although that included one extra day, having opened on a Thursday. A chunky 17.3% of Interstellar’s total is from IMAX screenings, which highlights the draw of this film in the format. 13.5% of Gravity’s total gross was from IMAX screenings.
After opening the London Film Festival and picking up the audience award at the Toronto Film Festival, The Imitation Game arrived in UK cinemas with high expectations and I’m pleased to report that it fulfilled them. An opening weekend gross of £2.7m (including £47k from previews) is the second highest start ever for distributor, StudioCanal, and also emphatically proves that The Imitation Game is not another The Fifth Estate, which could only manage £502k when it went on general release last October.
The first of this year’s Christmas films got in early and opened this weekend. Nativity 3: Dude, Where’s My Donkey started its run with £1.8m, which is higher than both the first Nativity (£786k) and Nativity 2: Danger In The Manger! (£1.6m) opened with. It should continue to perform well in the run up to Christmas but will face stiff competition from Paddington, Get Santa and Penguins Of Madagascar.
Mr. Turner continued to perform well in fourth, falling just 27% to £742k and to date it has grossed a hugely impressive £4.4m. That’s almost double Mike Leigh’s previous best performing film, Vera Drake (£2.4m) and it continues the trend of upmarket, intelligent content over-performing in 2014, after The Grand Budapest Hotel, 12 Years A Slave and The Wolf Of Wall Street. Another new entry, The Drop, completed the top five with £638k, which included £23k from previews.
In sixth, Gone Girl added another £454k and to date has now grossed a whopping £21.55m. That makes it the third highest grossing 18-certificate film of all time, just behind Hannibal (£21.6m), which it will overtake at some point this week. Only The Wolf Of Wall Street has grossed more and at the same stage of its run, The Wolf Of Wall Street had earned £21.46m.
Overall, the box office was up 9% from last weekend and up 2% from the same weekend last year.
Next Weekend
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 is in cinemas on Thursday and it’s all set to be one of the biggest films of the year. If it matches Catching Fire’s £34.2m final total, it will be the biggest film of the year to date. Also in cinemas is Idris Elba thriller, No Good Deed, which has earned over $52m in the US. James Brown biopic Get On Up is also out, along with Tommy Lee Jones’ latest directorial effort, The Homesman, which is a surprising western, with two great performances from Jones himself and Hilary Swank. Finally, a very funny comedy from New Zealand is also released in vampire mockumentary, What We Do In The Shadows.
The Buzz
Dumb And Dumber To opened in the US this weekend (see below) and it has opened with a very strong $38.1m, which bodes well for its UK release on 19 December. However, it has received lukewarm reviews (to put it kindly) and has a score of 35 on Metacritic, with just one of 31 logged reviews described as positive.
Across The Pond
Dumb and Dumber To topped the box office with $38.1m, which is only just behind last year’s big comedy sequel, Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues ($39.5m) and it’s the biggest opening for a Jim Carrey comedy since Bruce Almighty. The audience was 55% male and 57% over the age of 25. Big Hero 6 dropped to second, falling 36% to $36.1m and a cume of $111.7m. Interstellar took third, adding a further $29.2m for a cume of $97.8m. Fourth place was taken by new entry, Beyond the Lights, which opened with $6.5m. Gone Girl completed the top five with $4.6m and has now earned a terrific $152.7m.