| Date | |
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| Author | Zoe Aresti |
The Weekend Round-up
Peter Rabbit is giving Paddington a run for his money. A bumper Easter weekend saw the family comedy add an impressive £5.6m from Friday to Sunday and an additional £2.7m on Easter Monday for a huge new total of £24.3m. The first Paddington finished on £37.9m and with most schools across the UK on holiday for the next two weeks, Peter Rabbit looks like it will get close to, and possibly surpass, that total.
Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One opened last Wednesday and to date has grossed £6.7m (including £1.1m from previews). That figure includes £4m across Friday to Sunday, which is the fifth biggest Friday to Sunday opening of the year to date. Spielberg’s last big fantasy film, The BFG, opened with £5.3m across Friday to Sunday.
Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs opened in third with £1.4m from Friday to Sunday and then, on a bumper Monday, it added £603k for a total of £2.2m to date (including £195k from previews). Anderson’s previous stop motion animation, Fantastic Mr. Fox, opened with £1.5m in 2009 on its way to a final total of £9.1m.
Black Panther came in fourth with £1m across the weekend and £1.4m including Monday. That takes its total to £47.1m and it now looks certain to overtake Avengers: Age Of Ultron’s final total of £48.3m to become Marvel’s second biggest film in the UK. Avengers Assemble’s final total of £51.9m might not be safe either, but you would think Black Panther will have to get there before Avengers: Infinity War is released on 26 April.
New entry Blockers completed the top five, delivering £933k across Friday to Sunday, and then adding £354k on Monday. Added to previews from the 24 and 25 March (£416k) that takes its total to £1.7m. It looks likely to perform similarly to recent comedy Game Night, which is currently on £4.7m.
Outside of the top five, family animation Duck Duck Goose opened with £654k across Friday to Sunday and then added £377k on Monday for a four-day total of £1m (including £54k from previews). It looks to be the family film to see after you’ve seen Peter Rabbit, Isle Of Dogs and The Greatest Showman this Easter.
Overall, the box office was up 52% from last weekend and up 24% from the same weekend last year, when the top films were Beauty And The Beast, Ghost In The Shell, Smurfs: The Lost Village and Get Out.
Next Weekend
A Quiet Place is a thrilling horror about a family that is forced to live in silence while hiding from creatures that hunt by sound. John Krasinski directs and stars, alongside his real-life wife, Emily Blunt. It’s in cinemas on Thursday.
Ghost Stories is a big screen adaptation of the hit London stage play. Arch skeptic Professor Phillip Goodman embarks upon a terror-filled quest when he stumbles across a long-lost file containing details of three cases of inexplicable 'hauntings'.
Thoroughbreds is a hip drama about two upper-class teenage girls in suburban Connecticut who rekindle their unlikely friendship after years of growing apart. Together, they hatch a plan to solve both of their problems-no matter what the cost. Anya Taylor-Joy and Olivia Cooke play the two leads.
Love, Simon is a teen comedy about a young man who keeps a huge secret from his family, his friends, and all of his classmates: he's gay. When that secret is threatened, Simon must face everyone and come to terms with his identity. It has been a hit in the US and has been well received here too.
The Hurricane Heist is an action-thriller about a group of thieves who attempt a massive heist against the U.S. Treasury as a Category 5 hurricane approaches one of its mint facilities. It is released on Sky Cinema on Friday too.
Wonderstruck is from Carol director, Todd Haynes. It’s the story of a young boy in the Midwest and is told simultaneously with a tale about a young girl in New York from fifty years ago as they both seek the same mysterious connection.
The Buzz
Deadpool 2 is the sequel to the 2016 superhero sensation and is set to be one of the biggest films of the summer. Here is the official synopsis from IMDB: After surviving a near fatal bovine attack, a disfigured cafeteria chef (Wade Wilson) struggles to fulfill his dream of becoming Mayberry's hottest bartender while also learning to cope with his lost sense of taste. Searching to regain his spice for life, as well as a flux capacitor, Wade must battle ninjas, the yakuza, and a pack of sexually aggressive canines, as he journeys around the world to discover the importance of family, friendship, and flavour - finding a new taste for adventure and earning the coveted coffee mug title of World's Best Lover.
A new trailer was launched last week and can be found here: https://youtu.be/D86RtevtfrA.
Across The Pond
Ready Player One topped the box office in the US, opening with $53.7m across the four-day weekend after opening on Thursday. The film is the largest opening weekend for Spielberg since the $100m opening for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull back in 2008. Tyler Perry's Acrimony opened in second with $17.2m and Black Panther came in third, adding $11.5m. That takes its total to $650.9m and it will soon overtake Jurassic World and Titanic to become the third largest domestic release of all-time. I Can Only Imagine came in fourth, adding $10.4m for a new total of $55.3m. Pacific Rim Uprising completed the top five, falling 67% to $9.4m, which takes its total to $45.8m.