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The Weekend Round-up
On the final weekend before Christmas The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies stayed in the top spot, holding off a couple of high profile sequels. Peter Jackson’s trilogy closer was off 45% to £5.4m and after ten days in cinemas has cracked the £20m mark. It now sits on £20.3m and at the same point in its run The Desolation Of Smaug fell 43% and sat on £20m. In the next few days, The Battle Of The Five Armies will crack the top 10 films of the year and with nine more days left of 2014, it should climb pretty high up the list before the year is out.
It’s clear that the UK’s favourite family film this Christmas is Paddington, which has held off all family challengers to hold on to second with £2.5m. That’s a drop of just 14% and the British charmer has now grossed a strong £18.1m. £20m will be achieved in the next few days and then it will head towards its next milestone. All-star sequel, Night At The Museum 3: Secret Of The Tomb opened in third with £1.9m (including £6k from previews), which is by some distance the worst opening of the series. However, the £4.2m that Night At The Museum 2 opened with in 2009 was in May and this third instalment will be expecting to hold up well during the Christmas holidays.
Dumb & Dumber To opened in fourth with £1.8m, which after its $36m debut in the US is a little disappointing. However, it should provide a decent alternative to the family films on offer over the Christmas period. Penguins Of Madagascar rounded out the top five, falling 32% to £724k and now has a cume of £4.2m. The Christmas themed family films (Nativity 3, Get Santa) should see their appeal drop after Christmas when Penguins will be hoping that its lack of a Christmas theme will see it continue to prove a draw for families. Lower down the top 15, Aamir Khan title, P.K., had the biggest opening for a Bollywood film since Dhoom 3 last December, landing in seventh with £650k.
Overall the box office was down 11% from last weekend and down 14% from the same weekend last year, when The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug took the top spot, with Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues opening strongly in second and Frozen having a very strong hold in third.
Next Weekend
The week between Christmas and New Year is always a big week for cinema and this year the new films hoping to capitalise on the huge numbers of people bored of chatting to their family are Ridley Scott’s biblical epic, Exodus: Gods and Kings, Angelina Jolie’s awards hopeful, Unbroken and Tim Burton once again brings his own brand of whimsy to the big screen with Big Eyes.
The Buzz
Wild has quietly been performing impressively since going on limited release in the US. It’s up to $7m and looks set to reach at least $40m, which bodes well for its UK release on 16 January. Also out on that same date is Whiplash, which despite excellent reviews and being completely thrilling, has spluttered its way to $5m in the US and looks like it will struggle to reach $10m. As expected, despite its brilliance, a tale of a jazz drummer and his sociopathic instructor is proving hard for Sony to market.
Across The Pond
The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies opened on Wednesday and after five days on release has banked $90.6m. It’s the first film in the series to open on a Wednesday, so comparisons are tricky but its Friday to Sunday total of $56.2m is the lowest of the trilogy. The audience was 60% male and 60% over the age of 25. Night At The Museum 3: Secret of the Tomb had a typical Friday start and earned $17.3m. That’s the lowest of the series, with the first film opening with $30.4m on the same weekend in 2006. The Annie remake opened with $16.3m, which was good enough for third and the audience was 70% female. Last week’s number one, Exodus: Gods and Kings fell 67% to $8.1m and after ten days in cinemas has grossed $38.9m. The top five was completed by The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1, which added a further $7.8m and has now grossed $289.2m.
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