| Date | |
|---|---|
| Author | Tom Linay |
The Weekend Round-up
- It’s official, the critics don’t matter. Venom has defied the reviews to post a terrific opening of £8m, which includes £2.4m from previews. That’s not that far behind the £9.4m (including £2.6m from previews) that Spider-Man: Homecoming opened with in July 2017 and Spider-Man is clearly a much more widely known character than Venom. Of more recent comic-book films, Ant-Man and The Wasp opened with £5m, including £1.2m from previews and is on £17.8m, so Venom will be looking to beat that.
- Another film that had a rough ride from the critics, Johnny English Strikes Again, opened in second with £4.1m. This is the third film featuring the hapless spy and in terms of box office performance, it has landed between the two, with the first Johnny English opening with £3.4m in 2003 and the sequel, Johnny English Reborn opening with £5m in 2011. £19.7m is where the first film finished and Reborn just sneaked past it to £20.7m,
- A Star Is Born made it an all new top three, opening with £4.1m, which includes £1m from previews. In terms of recent musicals, La La Land opened with £6.6m, which included £944k from previews, while The Greatest Showmanopened with £4.8m, including £2.2m from previews. What was notable about both those films, The Greatest Showman in particular, is their relatively shallow drops in subsequent weeks. With the excellent word-of-mouth A Star Is Born is receiving, hopefully it will do the same.
- The House With A Clock In Its Walls fell to fourth, adding £902k, a drop of 42% from last weekend. That takes its total to £6.8m and it will need a good half term week in a couple of weeks to reach Goosebumps’ final total of £9m.
- Last week’s top film, Night School completed the top five, falling 46% to £860k. That takes its 10-day total to £3.1m
- Outside of the top five, The Nun has crossed the £11m mark and now sits on £11.1m. In doing so, it has overtaken The Conjuring 2: The Enfield Case (£11m) to become the biggest film in The Conjuring series to date.
Overall, the box office was up 85% from last weekend and up 36% from the same weekend last year, when the top films were Blade Runner 2049, Kingsman: The Golden Circle, It, Victoria & Abdul, and The Mountain Between Us.
Next Weekend
- First Man is alook at the life of the astronaut, Neil Armstrong, and the legendary space mission that led him to become the first man to walk on the Moon on July 20, 1969. Ryan Gosling stars as Armstrong, and Claire Foy as his wife, Janet. Damien Chazelle (La La Land, Whiplash) directs.
- Smallfoot is an animated comedy about a Yeti who is convinced that the elusive creatures known as "humans" really do exist. Channing Tatum, Zendaya and James Corden lend their vocal talents.
- Bad Times At The El Royale is an intriguing thriller from Drew Goddard, who upended all our horror expectations with The Cabin In The Woods. Seven strangers, each with a secret to bury, meet at Lake Tahoe's El Royale, a rundown hotel with a dark past. Over the course of one fateful night, everyone will have a last shot at redemption - before everything goes to hell. The quality cast includes Chris Hemsworth, Dakota Johnson, Jeff Bridges and Jon Hamm.
The Buzz
Boots Riley’s Sorry To Bother You was one of the biggest independent films in the US over the summer, grossing $17.5m. Set in an alternate present-day version of Oakland, California, telemarketer Cassius Green discovers a magical key to professional success, propelling him into a universe of greed. It’s also one of the most praised films of the summer, with The New Yorker calling it ‘a scintillating comedic outburst of political imagination and visionary fury’, while The Los Angeles Times said ‘the genius of the picture is that even its wildest, most boundary-pushing formulations are tied to a thoughtful, rigorous thesis about how disparities of race, class and money conspire to keep ruthless systems of human oppression in place.’ It’s in UK cinemas on 7 December but you can see it first at the London Film Festival, which starts on Wednesday.
Across The Pond
Venom topped the box office in the US too, opening with a huge $80m, beating the previous October opening weekend record by more than $20m. A Star is Born opened in second with an also impressive $43m and including previews it is on $44.3m. Smallfoot came in third, falling 35% to $14.4m, which takes its total to $42.3m. Last week’s top film, Night School, tumbled 54% in its second weekend to $12.5m, which takes its total to $47m. The House with a Clock in Its Walls completed the top five, adding $7.3m for a new total of $55.1m.