| Date | |
|---|---|
| Author | Zoe Aresti |
The Weekend Round-up
After being the top performing film from Friday to Sunday last weekend, only to be pipped to the top spot by Warcraft’s previews, Me Before You ascended to take the number one place. It fell just 17% to £1.5m, and after 10 days in cinemas has banked an impressive £4.5m.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows held on to the second spot, falling 43% to £841k. That brings its total to £4.8m and it’s clear that it is going to fall well short of the first film’s final total of £13.9m.
Alice Through the Looking Glass added £833k in third, for a new total of £8.3m. It was never going to come close to the original’s £42.6m but it’s a solid performance. Last week’s number one film, Warcraft: The Beginning, fell to fourth, tumbling a chunky 50% to £728k but crossing the £5m mark in the process.
X-Men: Apocalypse completed the top five, falling 44% to £704k, bringing its total to £17.1m. It has now overtaken X-Men Origins: Wolverine’s final total of £16.4m.
Outside of the top five, The Nice Guys has a decent hold, adding £642k for a 10-day total of £2.2m.
Melissa McCarthy vehicle, The Boss, was the weekend’s highest new entry in seventh with £595k. While that’s not very impressive, it’s still better than Tammy, McCarthy’s last collaboration with her director husband, Ben Falcone; that film opened with £474k in 2014.
Ensemble comedy Mother’s Day opened in ninth with £420k (including £25k from previews). Considering it had the same director and set-up as Valentine’s Day, which opened with £3.7m in 2010, it could reasonably have been expected to open more strongly than it did.
Overall the box office was down 49% from last weekend and down 68% from the same weekend last year, when the top four films were Jurassic World, Spy, San Andreas and Insidious: Chapter 3.
Next Weekend
The Conjuring 2: The Enfield Case opened this week (13 June) and after an impressive opening in the US (see below), there is hope it could get close to the original’s final total of £10.5m. Paranormal investigators Lorraine and Ed Warren travel to north London to help a single mother raising four children alone in a house plagued by malicious spirits.
God’s Of Egypt is a big budget fantasy epic starring Gerard Butler and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. Mortal hero Bek (Brenton Thwaites) teams with the god Horus (Coster-Waldau) in an alliance against Set (Butler), the merciless god of darkness, who has usurped Egypt's throne, plunging the once peaceful and prosperous empire into chaos and conflict.
Barbershop: The Next Cut is the third film about Calvin’s (Ice Cube) South Chicago barbershop. As their surrounding community has taken a turn for the worse, the crew at Calvin's barbershop come together to bring some much needed change to their neighbourhood. The first two films, released in 2003 and 2004, have grossed just £219k between them at the UK box office, but with Ice Cube’s bigger box office clout now, the hope is that The Next Cut should surpass them. The Secret Life Of Pets is set to be one of the year’s big family films and previews on Saturday and Sunday.
The Buzz
The most anticipated animated film of the year, Finding Dory, opens in the US this coming weekend and the first reviews are out. Variety went all-in with their praise, saying Pixar has 'figured out how to take an already perfect character and deepen her in an exquisitely satisfying way'. Screen International was equally as glowing, saying ‘this follow-up showcases everything the venerated animation company does so well, providing plentiful laughs, ace action sequences and a deep emotional wellspring.’ IndieWIRE called it Pixar’s best since Up, while The Hollywood Reporter wasn’t quite as excited, arguing that ‘while rambunctious and passably humorous, this offspring isn't nearly as imaginative and nimble-minded as the forerunner that spawned it.’ It’s out in the UK on 29 July.
Across The Pond
The Conjuring 2 opened with an impressive $40m, nearly matching the first film’s $41.8m in July 2013. Warcraft opened in second with $24.3m and third was taken by another new entry, Now You See Me 2, which kicked off its run with $23m. The original opened with $29.3m three years ago but had strong legs, to finish on over $117m. Last week’s number one film, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, fell 58% to $14.8m, to take fourth spot and to date it has banked just over $61m. Completing the top five is X-Men: Apocalypse, which added $10m bringing its total to $136.3m.