Guardians Soars To The Top

The Weekend Round-up

A new set of superheroes flew in this weekend and took the box office by storm. Six months ago, the Guardians of the Galaxy may not have been familiar to many of the UK’s cinemagoers but if their opening weekend of £6.4m is anything to go by, they will soon be household names. That figure includes £1.4m from Thursday previews but the Friday to Sunday total of £5m is the sixth highest opening weekend of the year, comfortably surpassing Marvel’s other 2014 release, Captain America: The Winter Soldier (£4.2m).

When a film opens big at the box office it often results in other films suffering but that was not the case this weekend, as both Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and How To Train Your Dragon 2 had remarkably strong holds. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes fell just 21% to £3m and now has a cume of £23.4m. That means it has overtaken Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ final total of £21m and is highly likely to overtake X-Men: Days of Future Past’s current total of £27.1m and become the biggest film of the summer. A terrific performance and testament to the quality of the film.

How To Train Your Dragon 2 was even better and actually increased on last weekend by 11% with £1.1m. It’s rare that a film actually increases week-on-week, especially one that is on its sixth week of release. It now has a cume of £17.6m, and has overtaken the first How To Train Your Dragon’s final total of £17.4m. This excellent weekend performance gives hope that there’s still a bit more to come too.

In fourth, Hercules fell 38% to £901k for a cume of £3.7m, which compares very favourably with the 56% drop Immortals had on its second weekend. The Dwayne Johnson actioner is now up to £3.8m. The Purge: Anarchy also had an unusually strong hold for a horror, falling 30% to £811k. The first Purge film fell 47% on its second weekend and Anarchy now has a cume of £3.1m and is set to easily outstrip the first film’s £3.4m final total.

The only disappointments this weekend were the remaining two new entries, The Nut Job and Step Up 5: All In. The Nut Job opened with $19.4m in the US in January, so it was fair to expect it to deliver more than the £667k it managed in the UK this weekend. In 2008, Step Up 2 The Streets set a series best debut of £2.4m and Step Up 4: Miami Heat opened with £680k two years ago but All In could only manage £391k this weekend.

One other thing to note, you may have noticed that Back To The Future appears on the chart at number seven this week. This is due to Secret Cinema’s much publicised BTTF event that is currently taking place in east London. Rentrak are reporting the performance and after opening last Thursday it has earned an impressive £720k.

Overall the box office was up 51% from last weekend and down 3% from the same weekend last year, but that is due to big preview figures last year for both The Smurfs 2 and The Heat.

Next Weekend

The Inbetweeners 2 is in cinemas on Wednesday and it’s a good time to remind everyone that the first film took $45m at the UK box office in August 2011, making it the second highest grossing live-action comedy in UK history (behind The Full Monty). Also in cinemas is Planes 2: Fire and Rescue, which will be hoping to emulate the first film’s £9m final total last year.

The Buzz

Lucy is in cinemas on 22 August and will be hoping to replicate its strong US performance. On a more long-term view, Edgar Wright recently tweeted ‘have heard from two different people that Interstellar is Chris Nolan's best film’. Just over three months to find out if they’re right.

Across The Pond

Guardians of the Galaxy opened strongly in the UK but in the US, it went stratospheric. An opening weekend of $94.3m is the highest ever August debut, smashing the previous best of $69.3m held by The Bourne Ultimatum. It’s also above recent superhero films The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and X-Men: Days of Future Past. One of the reasons for its success is its broad appeal, the audience was 44% female and 55% over the age of 25. Last week’s number one, Lucy fell 58% to $18.3m for a strong cume of $79.5m. James Brown biopic Get On Up opened with $13.6m in third, which is higher than the recent Jersey Boys film ($13.3m). Hercules was in fourth with $11m for a cume of $52.7m, and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes completed the top five with $8.7m for a cume of $189.3m.