| Date | |
|---|---|
| Author | Tom Linay |
The Weekend Round-up
- Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker held on to the top spot for the first weekend of 2020. The box office behemoth added £4.4m, a drop of 53% from last weekend, which takes its total to £51.3m. While that’s an impressive figure, The Rise Of Skywalker looks certain to finish on the lowest total of the new trilogy, with The Last Jedi finishing on £82.3m and The Force Awakens finishing on a frankly ridiculous £123.3m, a figure that looks unlikely to be beaten by any film for quite some time.
- Jumanji: The Next Level has been flying since Christmas and added £3.1m over the weekend, a drop of just 16%. That takes its total to £28.5m, with almost £12m of that coming since Christmas Day. Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle finished its run on £38.5m, so The Next Level still has £10m to go to match it but with no major family releases in January, it should get pretty close.
- Guy Ritchie’s The Gentlemen took on Little Women over the weekend, and while The Gentlemen finished third in the box office for the weekend, that was due to previews after opening on New Year’s Day. The London-set crime drama kicked off its run with £3.1m, which includes £858k from Wednesday and Thursday. Guy Ritchie’s last film was Aladdin, and while I’ve yet to see The Gentlemen, I’m guessing it’s not an appropriate comparison so looking at his recent non-Aladdin output, The Gentlemen looks set to outperform both King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword (£4.9m) and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (£6.5m).
- Little Women gave The Gentlemen a good pasting from Friday to Sunday, adding £2.6m, which takes Greta Gerwig’s period drama to an impressive £9.1m. Gerwig’s last film was Lady Bird, which finished on £5.6m so Little Women, with hopefully a little help from some BAFTA nominations tomorrow, will comfortably more than double that figure.
- Jojo Rabbit completed the top five opening with £2.4m, which includes £888k from previews after also opening on New Year’s Day. Interestingly, Jojo Rabbit outperformed The Gentlemen on Wednesday and Thursday, while The Gentlemen was comfortably bigger over the weekend.
- Outside of the top five, event cinema made a great start to the year with one of its biggest stars, Andre Rieu, back with Andre Rieu: 70 Years Young which banked £1.7m over the weekend.
- In seventh, Frozen II crossed the £50m mark and now sits on £50.1m, while Cats crossed the £10m mark in ninth.
- Overall the box office is down 7% from last weekend and up 22% from the same weekend last year when the top films were Mary Poppins Returns, The Favourite, Aquaman and Andre Rieu’s 2019 New Year Concert From Sydney.
Next Weekend
- 1917 is the Golden Globe winning drama about two young British soldiers during the First World War who are given an impossible mission: deliver a message deep in enemy territory that will stop 1,600 men, and one of the soldiers' brothers, from walking straight into a deadly trap. Sam Mendes (Skyfall) directs and it won the Golden Globe for both Best Picture (Drama) and Best Director last night.
The Buzz
- A Quiet Place: Part II is the sequel to the smash hit 2017 thriller. Following the events at home, the Abbott family now face the terrors of the outside world. Forced to venture into the unknown, they realize that the creatures that hunt by sound are not the only threats that lurk beyond the sand path. Emily Blunt returns and this time she’s joined by Cillian Murphy. It's set to be one of the stand-out thrillers of 2020 and the first trailer launched on New Year’s Day. You can watch it here: https://youtu.be/vzE_CxPjdZY.
Across The Pond
- The Rise of Skywalker added $33.7m across the weekend, which is a drop of 53% from last weekend, and that takes its total to $450.8m. Jumanji: The Next Level came in second falling 25% to $26.5m, and that takes its total to $236.2m. Little Women added $13.6m, which takes its total to $60m. Frozen II came in fourth, adding $11.3m for a new total of $449.9m. New entry, The Grudge completed the top five, opening with $11.3m.