| Date | |
|---|---|
| Author | Zoe Aresti |
The Weekend Round-up
The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel knocked Fifty Shades from the top spot, opening with £3.8m, which included £705k from Thursday previews. The first film opened with £2.3m in February 2012 so it's a big improvement on that, but that film had a very shallow burn rate and finished on £20.4m, so it will be interesting to see how this second instalment holds up over the coming weeks.
Fifty Shades Of Grey fell 51% to £2.2m in second and crossed the £30m mark in the process. It now has a cume of £30.3m and having started as Twilight fan fiction, it is performing like a later Twilight film.
Focus opened in third with £1.9m, which is a solid but unspectacular start for former box office king Will Smith.
Big Hero 6 added £1.2m in fourth, for a cume of £17.7m.
Shaun The Sheep Movie completed the top five, adding £1m for a healthy total of £11.6m.
Outside of the top five, Jennifer Lopez's steamy thriller, The Boy Next Door opened with £406k in seventh and brilliant horror, It Follows opened with £371k, which included £35k from previews, in ninth.
As we enter March, which is historically one of the quieter months of the year, the box office was down 15% from last weekend and almost identical (down just £10k) to the same weekend last year, when the top films were The Lego Movie, Ride Along, Non Stop and The Book Thief.
Next Weekend
Chappie would appear to be the biggest new release next weekend. Director Neill Blomkamp made a huge splash with his debut film, District 9 but his follow up, Elysium was met with mixed reviews. Hopes have been high for Chappie but the press screening is apparently only taking place on Thursday, which is a cause for concern.
Jeremy Renner thriller, Kill Your Messenger was once a potential awards contender but it slipped out of the running. It received middling reviews when it was released in the US in October and has grossed just $2.5m there to date.
Julianne Moore received the Best Actress Oscar for her performance in Still Alice and you can see why she deserved it when it's released on Friday.
The Buzz
Suite Francaise is in cinemas on 13 March. I was lucky enough to see a preview last week and it's a classy, well acted adaptation of Irène Némirovsky's novel but may struggle to reach further than the arthouse crowd.
Across The Pond
Focus opened in the top spot with $18.7m. The audience was 53% female and 88% over the age of 25. For the third weekend in a row, Kingsman: The Secret Service took second place, adding $11.9m for a cume of $85.8m.
The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water added $10.8m in third for an impressive cume of $139.9m. Fifty Shades Of Grey was in fourth, falling 53% to $10.6m and after 17 days has earned $147.4m. The Lazarus Effect opened in fifth place with $10.2m.
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