| Date | |
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| Author | Mia Blakeney |
The Weekend Box Office Round-up
Top Gun: Maverick has been a long time coming and it was worth the wait, opening with a terrific £15.9m, which includes £4.7m from previews after opening on Wednesday. Perhaps surprisingly, Tom Cruise’s biggest film in the UK & Ireland is 2005’s War Of The Worlds, which finished with £30.6m and apart from his Mission: Impossible films, only one film starring Cruise has surpassed £10m since and that was 2013’s Oblivion with £10.6m. Top Gun: Maverick will become his most successful film by quite some distance. The Friday to Sunday total of £11.2m is also more than the combined Friday to Sunday opening of the last two Mission: Impossible films. Surprisingly, Sunday was the biggest day for Top Gun: Maverick so far, which suggests it will hold up well throughout the week, particularly with a bank holiday on Thursday. Couple that with strong word-of-mouth (in Comscore’s PostTrak exit polls, the film achieved a full 5-star rating, as well as a 96% Total Positive reaction) and I’d be surprised if Top Gun: Maverick doesn’t fly past The Batman and Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness. £50m is not out of the question.
After three weekends in the top spot, Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness fell to second, adding £1.4m for a new total of £37.8m. In the pantheon of Marvel hits it has now overtaken Iron Man 3 (£37m), Captain America: Civil War (£37m) and Spider-Man: Far From Home (£37.3m). It’s still £3m behind The Batman though and it’s going to be touch and go whether it overtakes it. Half-term this week might give it a boost.
Everything Everywhere All At Once came in third falling 43% to £468k and a new total of £2.9m.
Downton Abbey: A New Era came in fourth, falling 54% to £351k which takes its total to £13.3m. It’s closing in on £14.15m, which marks 50% of the total of the first Downton Abbey film.
The Bob’s Burgers Movie was another new entry in fifth with £347k. While the television show it is based on is not widely popular, fans of the show appear to be pleased, with the film scoring 4.5 on Comscore’s PostTrak service. With the lack of new family films this half term, it might play strongly midweek too.
Outside of the top five, Sonic The Hedgehog 2 added £280k in sixth, which sees it race past the £25m mark, while The Lost City added £139k in eighth, which took it past the £10m mark. A terrific achievement from both films.
F3 is the latest in the steady stream of films from India to crack the top 10. It opened with £90k, which includes £25k from previews.
Overall, the box office was up 191% from last weekend.
Next Weekend
Men is the latest film from Alex Garland (Ex Machina, Annihilation). Jessie Buckley plays a woman who goes on a solo vacation to the English countryside following the death of her ex-husband. Rory Kinnear co-stars.
Blumhouse Presents: Dashcam is the latest screen life film (a film where all the events take place on a computer screen or phone). Two friends on a horror-fuelled road trip livestream the most terrifying night of their lives.
The Buzz
Elvis is the latest music biopic to hit cinemas and this one comes from Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge, The Great Gatsby, William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet). Austin Butler stars as Elvis Presley and Tom Hanks stars as Colonel Tom Parker. The film had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival last week and as is always the case with Baz Luhrmann films, if you’re into his style, you’ll have a lot of fun. Clarisse Loughrey in The Independent gave the film four stars, writing: ‘while you won’t find all that much truth in Baz Luhrmann’s cradle-to-grave dramatisation of his life, the Australian filmmaker has delivered something far more compelling: an American fairytale’. Robbie Collin in the Telegraph also went four stars, saying: ‘yes, it’s a bright and splashy jukebox epic with an irresistible central performance from Austin Butler . . . it’s the most impeccably styled and blaringly gaudy thing you’ll see all year, and all the more fun for it.’. Jordan Farley in Total Film talked up Butler’s awards prospects: ‘the toe-tapping beats of this full-throated biopic will be familiar in more ways than one but Baz Luhrmann, like Elvis, knows how to put on a great show. Butler’s Best Actor chatter starts here’. It’s in cinemas on 24 June.
Across The Pond
On the Memorial Day holiday weekend, Top Gun: Maverick opened in the top spot in the US with a huge $124m, by far Tom Cruise’s biggest ever opening in the US and his only $100m+ opening. Including Monday, it’s expected to reach over $150m. After three weekends in the top spot, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness fell to second, adding $16.4m from Friday to Sunday for a new total of $370.8m. The Bob’s Burger Movie opened in third with $12.6m from Friday and Sunday and is expected to hit $15m after Monday. Downton Abbey: A New Era fell to fourth with $5.9m, a drop of 63% from last weekend. That takes its total to $28.5m and it’s expected to cross $30m by Monday. Completing the top five is The Bad Guys, adding $4.6m from Friday to Sunday, which takes its total to $81.4m.