| Date | |
|---|---|
| Author | Tom Linay |
The Weekend Round-up
The Boss Baby came out comfortably on top this week, thanks to six days of previews, but it won the Friday to Sunday weekend too. It opened with £8.1m, which includes £5.2m from previews and with the Easter holidays now in full swing, it should add plenty more.
Beauty and the Beast fell to second, but added £2.8m, which brings its total to £58.5m. It’s now the 14th biggest film in UK history and will soon dance into the top 10. This week it should overtake the first and last Lord of the Rings films, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and Jurassic World to take its place in the top 10.
Peppa Pig: My First Cinema Experience opened in third with £1.1m. The last Peppa Pig film, The Golden Boots, opened with £688k in 2015, and finished on £2.3m. Peppa Pig: My First Cinema Experience should have no trouble topping that.
Ghost in the Shell took a tumble in fourth, falling 63% to £726k. After 11 days in cinemas it has now banked £4.1m.
Get Out continued its sensational run, having the best hold in the top 10. It fell 46% to 597k and crossed the £8m mark in the process. Of horror films in recent years, only Split and The Conjuring series have been bigger.
Outside of the top five, Going in Style opened in sixth with £569k. Hopefully this title will have a strong appeal for the older, midweek audience. Another big-name comedy, Table 19 could only open in 12th spot with £131k.
Overall, the box office was up 4% from last weekend and up 33% from the same weekend last year, when the top four films were Huntsman: Winter’s War, Zootropolis, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Eddie the Eagle.
Next Weekend
Fast & Furious 8 is the latest instalment in the hugely successful franchise. When a mysterious woman seduces Dom into the world of terrorism and a betrayal of those closest to him, the crew face trials that will test them as never before. It’s in cinemas this Wednesday 12 April.
The Sense of an Ending is an adaptation of the Man Booker Prize-winning novel by Julian Barnes. A man becomes haunted by his past and is presented with a mysterious legacy that causes him to rethink his current situation in life. The cast includes Jim Broadbent and Charlotte Rampling.
The Handmaiden is an erotic thriller from Old Boy director, Park Chan-wook. A woman is hired as a handmaiden to a Japanese heiress, but secretly she is involved in a plot to defraud her.
The Buzz
Colossal looks to be a genuinely original sci-fi. Anne Hathaway stars as a woman who discovers that severe catastrophic events are somehow connected to the mental breakdown from which she's suffering. It has so far had some very strong reviews, with The New Yorker saying ‘it achieves a rare synthesis of virtues that is a primal value of the cinema: it revels in the power of cinematic artifice to tell a story that confronts big questions about real life.’
Rolling Stone called it ‘a brilliantly bizarre satire of gender politics’, while The New York Times said it ‘wrings a great deal of fun - and also some genuine terror, by no means all of it monster-related - from its blithely bizarre conceit.’ It’s out in the UK on 19 May.
Across The Pond
The Boss Baby held on to the top spot, falling 48% to $26.3m, which brings its total to $89.4m. Beauty and the Beast added $23.6m in second and has now grossed a huge $430.1m.
Smurfs: The Lost Village opened in third with $13.2m and Going in Style opened in fourth with $11.9m. Ghost in the Shell completed the top five, adding $7.3m, for a new cume of $31.5m.