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| Author | Zoe Aresti |
It's another milestone moment for the return of Cinema as, this past weekend, DCM's estate delivered 1.2m admissions resulting in a huge 2.3m admissions for the full week – officially our strongest weekend since February 2020!
With two big new films released on Friday, it was the biggest box office weekend for almost 18 months, as The Suicide Squad opened in the top spot with £3.3m. While that’s not as big as the Friday to Sunday opening weekends of Black Widow (£4.6m) and Fast & Furious 9 (£4.8m) both those films were 12A, while The Suicide Squad is a 15 cert and very much earns that certificate. One of the key components of The Suicide Squad is Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn and her last appearance was in Birds Of Prey, which was released just before the pandemic in February 2020, and opened with £2.7m. The Suicide Squad is one of the best reviewed comic book films in years, with a 96% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes so hopefully word-of-mouth will be strong.
Disney’s Jungle Cruise opened in second with £2.2m. This is another simultaneous cinema and Disney+ premier access release and aside from Black Widow, the last Disney film to open in cinemas and on streaming at the same time was Cruella, which opened with £1.5m. You would expect Jungle Cruise to be one of the biggest draws for families throughout the school holidays in August.
Space Jam: A New Legacy fell to third and posted a terrific hold, falling just 2% from last weekend to £1.3m. That takes its total to £6.6m and it now looks like it will have the legs to get to £10m and beyond. The Croods 2: A New Age increased on the previous weekend’s total for the second straight weekend, posting a total of £893k, an increase on 2% from last weekend. That takes its total to £4.2m after three weekends in cinemas.
After staying in the top spot for three successive weekends, Black Widow fell to fifth, adding £788k, a drop of 44% from last weekend. That takes its total to £16.1m and it is now just £200k behind the final total of 2015’s Ant-Man, which is the lowest performing Marvel film in recent years.
Outside of the top five, animation Spirit Untamed opened in sixth with £592k, while Peter Rabbit 2 has now crossed the £19m mark in 10th and is now on £19.3m. Can it become the first film in the pandemic-era to reach £20m? It looks possible.
Overall the box office was up a huge 67% from last weekend.
Next Weekend
The Last Letter From Your Lover is an adaptation of the Jojo Moyes novel, starring Shailene Woodley, Felicity Jones, Nabhaan Rizwan, and Callum Turner. A pair of interwoven stories set in the past and present follow an ambitious journalist determined to solve the mystery of a forbidden love affair at the center of a trove of secret love letters from 1965.
Stillwater is a thriller starring Matt Damon and Abigail Breslin. Damon stars as a father who travels from Oklahoma to France to help his estranged daughter, who is in prison for a murder she claims she didn't commit.
Profile is a screenlife thriller (set on a computer screen, like Unfriended) about an undercover British journalist who infiltrates the online propaganda channels of the so-called Islamic State, only to be sucked in by her recruiter.
Zola is is a 2020 dark comedy based on a viral Twitter thread by Aziah "Zola" King and the resulting Rolling Stone article "Zola Tells All: The Real Story Behind the Greatest Stripper Saga Ever Tweeted" by David Kushner. It stars Taylour Paige, Riley Keough, and Nicholas Braun.
Across The Pond
With The Suicide Squad not out in the US until next weekend, Jungle Cruise opened in the top spot with $34.2m. The Green Knight opened in second with $6.8m, while M. Night Shyamalan’s Old fell to third with $6.8m, which takes its total to $30.6m. Black Widow added $6.4m in its fourth weekend, which takes its total to $167.1m. Matt Damon thriller Stillwater completed the top five, opening with $5.1m.