Box Office - The Boxtrolls Get Animated In The Top Spot

The Weekend Round-up

The Boxtrolls climbed the box office summit this weekend, taking the top spot with £2m, which included £689k from previews. The Boxtrolls is stop motion animation studio, Laika’s, third film and their previous one, ParaNorman, opened with £1.4m in 2012, so the Friday to Sunday totals are very similar. ParaNorman finished its run with £6.3m, so that’s the target for The Boxtrolls. 27% of The Boxtrolls’ box office was from 3D presentations, which is above average for a family film this year.

Lucy continued to hold up well, falling just 33% to £812k for an impressive cume of £12m, further confirming its status as a big late-summer success story. Third spot was taken by British comedy, Pride. It's a funny and genuinely moving true story whose overarching themes of solidarity and hope are particularly pertinent at the moment. DCM’s Jennifer Aucock and Sophi Hill both said it’s one of the best films they’ve seen and Rebecca Rau said “it’s a real crowdpleaser. I laughed,  I cried and I urge everyone to go and see it!” So it gives me great disappointment to announce that it only opened with £719k this weekend, with £62k of that from previews. Pride has been compared to both Billy Elliot and Calendar Girls and both of those titles opened quietly but held up extraordinarily well to reach £18m and £20.4m respectively. It’s looking unlikely that Pride will do the same but there is precedence for such films bucking the typical burn rate and word of mouth on this one should be strong. One other similar title is Made In Dagenham, which opened with £674k in 2010 and finished its run with £3.9m.

Pride just edged Sex Tape into fourth. The Cameron Diaz comedy fell just 32%, once previews are removed, to £673k for a cume of £2.7m. Another new entry, A Most Wanted Man, completed the top five with £610k, including £8k from previews. Featuring one of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s final performances, this thriller received five star reviews in both The Guardian and The Telegraph and is based upon a novel by John Le Carré, who also wrote Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. It was unrealistic to expect A Most Wanted Man to match that film’s £2.8m opening but £673k is perhaps a little disappointing.

Both Guardians of the Galaxy and Let’s Be Cops held up particularly well, with the latter crossing the £4m mark. On a quiet weekend, the box office was up 3% from last weekend and down 34% from the same weekend last year.

Next Weekend

Liam Neeson returns to cinemas in brooding thriller A Walk Among The Tombstones. Last time we saw Neeson in a leading role was in February’s Non-Stop, which grossed a strong £9.5m. Also out is stage-to-screen adaptation, The Riot Club, which received solid reviews after its premiere at the Toronto Film Festival. The latest young adult fiction adaptation, The Giver, hits the screens. Despite boasting a heavyweight cast, including Meryl Streep and Jeff Bridges expectations are not high, with the film having grossed only $41m to date in the US. Woody Allen’s latest, Magic In The Moonlight and Zach Braff’s follow-up to Garden State, Wish I Was Here will be hoping to woo the arthouse crowd.

The Buzz

British thriller The Imitation Game won the People’s Choice award at the Toronto International Film Festival at the weekend. Five of the last six winners of the award went on to be Oscar nominated for Best Picture with three of them winning (12 Years A Slave, The King’s Speech, Slumdog Millionaire).  It would appear that an awards frontrunner has emerged. It opens the London Film Festival on 8 October and opens nationwide on 14 November.

Across The Pond

Idris Elba thriller, No Good Deed, opened in the top spot with $24.3m. The audience was 60% female and 59% over the age of 30. Having moved release date a few times, it hits UK cinemas on 21 November. Another new entry opened in second in Dolphin Tale 2 with $15.9m. That figure is down 17% from the first Dolphin Tale, which opened with $19.2m in 2011. The year’s biggest film to date, Guardians of the Galaxy, had another strong weekend, falling just 22% to $8.1m. So far it has grossed a huge $306m.  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles took fourth with $4.9m for a strong cume of $181.1m. Let's Be Cops completed the top five with $4.4m and to date has grossed $73.1m.