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| Author | Zoe Aresti |
The Weekend Round-up
Logan made a sensational start, opening with £9.4m, which included £2.5m from previews. That’s a huge improvement over the last solo Wolverine film, 2013’s The Wolverine, which kicked off its run with £4.7m, including £939k from one-day of previews. It’s also more than the last full X-Men film, X-Men: Apocalypse, opened with last May (£7.4m, including £2m from previews) and it should have no trouble in surpassing that film’s final total of £18.3m.
After holding the top spot for the last three weeks, The LEGO Batman Movie fell to second, adding £1.5m, which brings its total to £25m. It looks like it will fall short of The LEGO Movie’s final total of £34.3m.
Gurinder Chadha’s period drama, Viceroy’s House, opened in third with £921k, which included £12k from previews. Chadha has experienced box office success in the UK, with Bend It Like Beckham grossing £11.6m, Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging grossing £5.5m and Bride and Prejudice grossing £5.2m. Viceroy’s House will need to hold up well to deliver those sort of figures.
Sing added another £800k in fourth, which brings its total to £27.5m. It’s closing in on La La Land, which is on £29.9m and currently the biggest film of 2017 to date.
Moonlight had a great boost from its Oscar Best Picture win, increasing its weekend take by 86% to £731k. It has now grossed £2.5m and has a good chance of overtaking Amy, to become distributor Altitude’s biggest film ever.
Outside of the top five, Lion had another great weekend, falling 24% to £529k in eighth and crossing the £10m mark in the process.
The weekend’s other major new entry disappointed. Ice Cube and Charlie Day comedy, Fist Fight, could only manage £400k, which was enough for 10th place.
Overall the box office was up 34% from last weekend and up 71% from the same weekend last year, when the top four films were London Has Fallen, Hail, Caesar!, Deadpool and Grimsby.
Next Weekend
Kong: Skull Island is the latest film starring the most famous giant ape in cinema. A great cast, including Brie Larson, Tom Hiddleston, John Goodman, John C. Reilly and Samuel L. Jackson travel to an uncharted island in the Pacific, unaware that they are crossing into the domain of monsters, including the mythic Kong. It has had some strong reviews, including four stars in The Telegraph. It’s in cinemas on Thursday.
Elle is the latest film from Dutch provocateur Paul Verhoeven (Robocop, Total Recall, Basic Instinct). An Oscar-nominated Isabelle Huppert stars as a successful businesswoman who gets caught up in a game of cat and mouse as she tracks down the unknown man who raped her. It will certainly inspire heated debate and Huppert gives a sensational performance. It’s in cinemas on Friday.
The Buzz
Get Out was mentioned in this column a few weeks ago, but it’s worth highlighting once again. It’s a horror with a strong seam of social commentary, from US comedian Jordan Peele. British actor, Daniel Kaluuya plays Chris, a young African-American man who visits his Caucasian girlfriend's mysterious family estate. It opened in the US on Friday with a sensational $30.5m, and currently has an incredible 100% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes from 136 reviews. It’s out in the UK on 17 March.
Across The Pond
Logan delivered the fourth highest R-rated opening weekend of all time, kicking off its run with $88.4m. Last week’s top film, Get Out, fell a measly 15% to $78.1m. That’s an incredible hold for a horror film. Another new entry landed in third, religious drama, The Shack, opened with $16.2m. The LEGO Batman Movie added $11.7m in fourth, which brings its total to $148.7m. John Wick: Chapter Two completed the top five, adding $4.8m for a new cume of $82.9m.