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| Author | DCM |
The Weekend Round-up
- After being knocked off the top spot last weekend thanks to Hobbs & Shaw’s previews, The Lion King rose back to the top spot posting a terrific hold – falling just 16% to £4.4m. That takes its total after its fourth weekend to £59.9m and it has now overtaken Toy Story 4 to become the second biggest film of 2019 to date. It’s still almost £30m behind Avengers: Endgame in first spot, but The Lion King looks like it has the legs to get past £70m before the end of its run.
- Last weekend’s top film Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw fell to second but posted a solid hold, falling 40% to £2.9m. The last Fast & Furious film, 2017’s Fast 8 fell 58% on its second weekend, so Hobbs & Shaw is holding up more strongly. It’s now up to £12.8m, and will shortly overtake 2009’s Fast & Furious (£13.7m), the fourth film in a series not known for its adventurous titles.
- Toy Story 4 had another sensational weekend, making the most of the inclement weather across the UK to increase on last weekend’s total by 19% to £1.6m. That takes its total to £58.8m and while it has now been overtaken by The Lion King, Toy Story 4 has now overtaken the final total of last year’s Incredibles 2 (£56.2m) to become the second biggest animated film of all-time in the UK, only behind Toy Story 3 (£74.1m). Of course, this also hinges on whether you consider the current remake of The Lion King as animation or live-action but that’s for another day.
- Gurinder Chadha’s Blinded By The Light was this weekend’s highest new entry, kicking off its run with £966k, which includes £111k from previews. Chadha’s last film, Viceroy’s House opened with a similar £921k in March 2017 and finished its run with £4.1m, so that’s the target for Blinded By The Light. Hopefully it’s Born To Run.
- Spider-Man: Far From Home was another film that had a great weekend, completing the top five and falling just 16% in doing so to £726k. That takes its total to £34.5m and it’s now the biggest Spider-Man film in the UK, having overtaken Spider-Man 3 (£33.6m).
- Outside of the top five, Playmobil opened in seventh with £376k. Any hopes that this might have been able to compete with The LEGO Movie series have been dashed.
Overall the box office is down 18% from last weekend and down 25% from the same weekend last year when the top films were The Meg, Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again!, Incredibles 2 and Ant-Man And The Wasp.
Next Weekend
- Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is the ninth film from Quentin Tarantino. Leonardo DiCaprio plays a faded television actor and his stunt double (Brad Pitt) who strives to achieve fame and success in the film industry during the final years of Hollywood's Golden Age in 1969 Los Angeles. Margot Robbie and Al Pacino also star. It’s out on Wednesday.
- Good Boys is a comedy about three sixth grade boys who ditch school and embark on an epic journey while carrying accidentally stolen drugs, being hunted by teenage girls, and trying to make their way home in time for a long-awaited party.
- Uglydolls is An animated adventure in which the free-spirited UglyDolls confront what it means to be different, struggle with a desire to be loved, and ultimately discover who you truly are is what matters most.
- Dora And The Lost City Of Gold is a live-action adventure about Dora, a teenage explorer who leads her friends on an adventure to save her parents and solve the mystery behind a lost city of gold.
The Buzz
Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark is a horror film produced by Guillermo Del Toro (The Shape Of Water, Pan’s Labyrinth) about a group of teens who face their fears in order to save their lives. It opened in the US this past weekend to an impressive result (see below) and it was warmly received by the critics too. IGN said it ‘will introduce a new generation to the joy of being scared’ and The Wrap said it ‘delivers an entrancing thriller that explores the power of narratives with a few screams to boot.’ DCM’s Chris Rogers was impressed and said it will provide ‘future Halloween sleep-over fuel’. It’s in UK cinemas on 23 August.
Across The Pond
Hobbs & Shaw stayed in the top spot, falling 51% to $25.4m for a new total of $108.5m. The weekend’s highest new entry was Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark which opened in second with an impressive $20.8m this weekend. The Lion King came in third, adding $20m for a new total of $473.1m. Dora and the Lost City of Gold opened in fourth with $17m and Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood fell 42% in fifth to $11.6m, which was enough to take it over the $100m mark. It’s now on $100.3m.