| Date | |
|---|---|
| Author | Zoe Aresti |
The Weekend Round-up
After comfortably topping the box office last weekend, The Secret Life of Pets held onto the top spot for a second week, holding off the strong challenge from Absolutely Fabulous. The Illumination animation added £4.7m, a drop of just 20% from last week, and it has now banked an impressive £16.6m. With the school holidays three weeks away, there should be plenty more to come.
Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie made its big screen debut on Friday and kicked off its run with an impressive £4m. That’s well above Dad’s Army’s £2.1m start, and only just behind the £4.3m Mrs. Brown’s Boys opened with at the end of June 2014. That film finished on £14.7m, a total Absolutely Fabulous will be confident in reaching.
Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart action-comedy, Central Intelligence, opened in third with £3.1m, which included £775k from previews. That’s a better start than either of the two Ride Along films made, so it will be hoping to comfortably out gross the £5.8m the second instalment finished with earlier this year.
Independence Day: Resurgence added £2m in fourth, bringing its total to £9.2m.
The Conjuring 2: The Enfield Case completed the top five, adding £824k for a new total of £9.5m. It’s looking well on course to top the first film’s £10.5m final total.
Outside of the top five, Zootropolis bounced back in to the top 15, thanks to kid’s club screenings, and has now grossed £23.7m.
Overall the box office was down 15% from last weekend and down 2% from the same weekend last year, when the top four films were Minions, Terminator: Genisys, Jurassic World and Magic Mike XXL.
Next Weekend
Now You See Me 2 opens today and is a sequel to the surprise 2013 hit. This time around The Four Horsemen resurface and are forcibly recruited by a tech genius to pull off their most impossible heist yet. To date it has grossed $58.7m in the US.
The Legend Of Tarzan is the latest big screen incarnation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ classic character. Having acclimated to life in London, Tarzan is called back to his former home in the jungle to investigate the activities at a mining encampment. Alexander Skarsgård plays the title role and he’s joined by Margot Robbie, Samuel L. Jackson and Christoph Waltz.
Maggie’s Plan stars Greta Gerwig as Maggie, whose plan to have a baby on her own is derailed when she falls in love with John (Ethan Hawke), a married man, destroying his volatile marriage to the brilliant Georgette. It also stars Julianne Moore, Bill Hader and Travis Fimmel.
The Neon Demon is the latest visual feast from Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive, Only God Forgives). Elle Fanning stars as aspiring model Jesse, who finds that when she moves to Los Angeles, her youth and vitality are devoured by a group of beauty-obsessed women who will take any means necessary to get what she has.
The Buzz
The Infiltrator stars Bryan Cranston as a U.S. Customs official who uncovers a money laundering scheme involving Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar. It’s out in the UK on 16 September but it’s released in the US this coming weekend and the first reviews are coming in. Variety were very positive, saying ‘Bryan Cranston gets a film role worthy of his ability to break bad in a tensely exciting true-life drama of undercover drug agents.’ The Hollywood Reporter praised Cranston more than the film, saying ‘Cranston's ace performance holds this mixed bag together’.
Across The Pond
On the four-day Independence Day weekend, Finding Dory held on to the top spot for the third straight weekend, bringing in $41.8m for the three-day weekend and it should bank around $51m for the four days. That would bring its total to a huge $380m. It will undoubtedly overtake Toy Story 3 ($415m) to become Pixar’s biggest ever hit in the US.
The Legend of Tarzan opened in second with $38.5m for the three-day weekend and a four-day total of around $43m. The Purge: Election Year opened in third with $31.5m three-day, and a likely four-day total of over $35m. The BFG opened in fourth with $18.8m over the three-day weekend and around $24m for the four-day weekend. Independence Day: Resurgence completed the top five, adding just under $20m for the four-day weekend, which would bring its total to $76.2m.