| Date | |
|---|---|
| Author | DCM |
| Categories | cinemabox OfficeFilm NewsNew Releases |
The Weekend Round-up
Apes ruled at the box office this weekend as Dawn of the Planet of the Apes opened with £8.7m, which included £1.6m from Thursday previews. That’s a huge improvement over Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ £5.8m debut, which included £1.1m in previews. Dawn’s performance is also the second highest opening of the year to date, behind only X-Men: Days of Future Past (£7.5m). All indications point to Dawn easily surpassing Rise’s final total of £21m.
How To Train Your Dragon 2 was in second place, falling 36% to £1.9m and a cume of £12.9m. It’s still got a way to go before it overtakes How to Train Your Dragon’s final total of £17.4m. Last week’s number one, Transformers: Age of Extinction, fell to third with £1.8m and now has a cume of £15.5m. It may not make it to the first Transformers’ final total of £23.5m.
Proving the growing popularity of live events, fourth and fifth place was taken up by Monty Python Live (Mostly) and Andre Rieu’s 2014 Masstricht Concert – with £1.2m & £831k respectively. Mrs. Brown’s Boys D’Movie completed the top five, adding another £559k for a terrific cume of £13.3m. Another television to big screen transition was the second highest new entry as Pudsey The Dog: The Movie opened in seventh place with £450k.
One other notable performer was Boyhood in eighth which, thanks to an increase in screen numbers, delivered exactly the same figure as last weekend, £312k for a cume of £897k. A shout out too to 22 Jump Street, which crossed the £18m mark at the weekend. Overall the box office was down 28% from last weekend, but up 68% from the same weekend last year.
Next Weekend
The Purge: Anarchy is out this Friday and reviews suggest that it’s a marked improvement on the first film with a more Running Man style plot. Also out is Dwayne Johnson in Hercules which looks to be a fun sword and sandals romp.
The Buzz
Guardians of the Galaxy previews from the 31st and the buzz is getting to stratospheric levels. Chris Hewitt, news editor at Empire magazine, said ‘it’s the best Star Wars movie since Return of the Jedi’.
Across The Pond
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes took the top spot for the second week running, falling 50% to $36.3m. The sci-fi epic now has a cume of $139.2m and is well on course to smash Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ final total of $176.8m. The Purge: Anarchy opened in second place with $29.8m, which is only slightly less than the £34.1m the original Purge opened with just over a year ago. Planes 2: Fire & Rescue opened in third with $17.5m, which is down on the $22m that the original Planes film opened with in August last year. Fourth place went to another new entry, bawdy comedy Sex Tape with $15m. Despite being from the same director and featuring the same lead actors as Bad Teacher, it opened with less than half of that film’s $31.6m debut. Transformers: Age of Extinction completed the top five with $9.8m for a cume of $227m.