| Date | |
|---|---|
| Author | Zoe Aresti |
The Weekend Round-up
The Martian conquered Everest, as the Ridley Scott sci-fi opened with a hugely impressive £6.5m, which included £1.6m from Wednesday and Thursday previews. The Friday to Sunday total of £4.9m is the ninth highest opening weekend of the year. Of recent autumn sci-fi films, it’s just below Interstellar (£5.4m) and Gravity (£5.6m) but it’s a great result and proves that even at 77, Ridley Scott can still put together a crowd-pleasing spectacle.
Legend held on to second spot, falling 42% to £1.1m for a terrific cume of £15.4m. It’s now distributor, StudioCanal’s third biggest film ever, behind The Imitation Game (£16.4m) and Paddington (£37.9m).
Everest had its first major dip, falling a chunky 58% to £850k and a cume of £8.7m. That hefty fall is probably down to The Walk and The Martian taking many of the IMAX and premium format screens.
The Intern opened in fourth with £759k (including £26k from previews). That’s director, Nancy Meyers’ lowest debut since her first film, 1998’s The Parent Trap (£496k).
Macbeth completed the top five with £742k, which includes £13k from previews.
Outside of the top five a couple of Bollywood titles opened in ninth and twelfth. Akshay Kumar action-comedy, Singh Is Bling kicked off with £193k and fantasy-epic, Puli opened with £143k.
Overall, the box office was up 54% from last weekend and up 3% from the same weekend last year, when the top four spots were taken by Gone Girl, Dracula Untold, The Equalizer and The Boxtrolls.
Next Weekend
Sicario opens on Thursday and is a genuinely gripping thriller from Prisoners director, Denis Villeneuve. Emily Blunt stars as an idealistic FBI agent who is selected to join a mysterious government taskforce to aid in the war against drugs at the border area between the U.S. and Mexico.
Regression is a thriller starring Ethan Hawke and Emma Watson, from director Alejandro Amenábar (The Others). It recently opened the San Sebastian Film Festival to lukewarm reviews.
The Walk is released nationwide on Friday, having been out on IMAX and large format screens since last weekend, where it grossed £158k. It’s a genuinely exciting film, from a Hollywood master, which demands to be seen in 3D on the biggest screen possible.
The Buzz
Bridge Of Spies premiered at the New York Film Festival on Sunday and has received strong reviews. Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian gave it five stars, and said ‘with terrific craftsmanship, pure storytelling gusto and that Midas-touch ability to find grounds for optimism everywhere, Steven Spielberg has dramatised a true-life cold war spy-swap drama’. The Hollywood Reporter called it ‘ an absorbing true-life espionage tale very smoothly handled by old pros who know what they're doing’. It’s out on 27 November.
Across The Pond
The Martian opened with an impressive $54.3m, which is almost exactly the same as Gravity opened with two years ago. Hotel Transylvania fell to second but added another $33.2m for a strong ten day total of $90.7m. Sicario went wider this weekend and added $12.1m, for a cume of $15.1m. The Intern had a solid hold in fourth, dropping only 34.1% to $11.7m, bringing its total to $36.6m. Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials completed the top five, falling 45.3% to $7.8m and a cume of $63.4m.