| Date | |
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| Author | Zoe Aresti |
The Weekend Round-up
After a quieter than expected opening last weekend, Wonder Woman flexed her muscles and had a great hold this weekend, falling just 31% (once previews are removed) to £3.5m.
That is one of the strongest holds in years for a superhero film and for comparison, last year Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice fell 68% on its second weekend, while Suicide Squad fell 62%. It’s hopefully testament to the strong word of mouth for Wonder Woman, and bodes well for a longer than usual run for this genre of film.
This weekend’s highest new entry was Tom Cruise star vehicle, The Mummy, which opened in second with £3.3m. That’s a solid start and a big improvement over Universal’s last Dark Universe title, Dracula Untold, which opened with £1.7m in 2014.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar’s Revenge came in third, adding £1.5m, which brings its total to £16m. It looks like it might have the legs to get to £20m, but it’s going to fall well short of the last instalment’s final total of £32.9m.
Baywatch added £1.1m in fourth and the bawdy comedy has now banked £7m.
Fifth place was taken by Take That: Wonderland Live from the O2 2017, which was from just Friday showings. It was the biggest grossing title on Friday.
Outside of the top five, Daphne Du Maurier adaptation, My Cousin Rachel, opened in sixth with £638k. This title should be more attractive to an older audience, so will hopefully perform strongly midweek.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 became only Marvel’s third title to cross the £40m mark in the UK, behind Avengers Assemble and Avengers: Age of Ultron. It now sits on £40.3m and is the fifth highest grossing superhero film of all time, behind the two aforementioned Avengers titles and the two Dark Knight films.
Overall the box office was down 23% from last weekend and up 61% from the same weekend last year, when the top four films were Me Before You, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, Alice Through The Looking Glass and Warcraft: The Beginning.
Next Weekend
Gifted is a drama starring Chris Evans as Frank, a single man raising his child prodigy niece Mary, who is drawn into a custody battle with his mother. It also stars Jenny Slate and Lindsay Duncan.
Churchill stars Brian Cox as Winston Churchill in a ticking-clock thriller set during the 96 hours before D-Day. Miranda Richardson and John Slattery also star.
Rock Dog is an animated comedy about a dog that dreams of becoming a musician. It’s also premiering on Sky Cinema at the same time, so its admissions may be limited.
The Buzz
Captain Underpants is an animation about two overly imaginative pranksters named George and Harold, who hypnotize their principal into thinking he's a ridiculously enthusiastic, incredibly dimwitted superhero named Captain Underpants. It opened in the US a couple of weeks ago and received some strong reviews, with a score of 69 on Metacritic. It has so far grossed $44.6m, which means it’s not likely to be a Boss Baby-sized hit.
Across the Pond
Wonder Woman held on to the top spot for a second week, adding an impressive $58.5m. That brings its total after just 10 days in cinemas to $206.3m. The Mummy opened in second with $31.6m, which continues Tom Cruise’s lacklustre openings in the US, outside of the Mission: Impossible series. Captain Underpants fell to second, adding $12.1m, which brings its total to $44.4m. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales finished in fourth, adding $10.7m for a new cume of $135.8m. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 completed the top five, adding $6.3m for a huge new cume of $366.4m..