‘The Fault In Our Stars’ Shines at UK Box Office

The Weekend Round-up

Tissues were in good use this weekend and not because of England’s early exit at the World Cup. Romantic weepie, The Fault In Our Stars opened with a very impressive £3.4m, which included £993k of previews. Since it opened with $48m in the US a couple of weeks ago, it was clear that the literary adaptation was connecting with audiences in the US and it proved to be the case here too. It also confirmed Shailene Woodley (Divergent) as one of the hottest new stars around.

Last week’s number one 22 Jump Street had a decent hold, falling 32% to £1.5m and a strong cume of £12.7m. It has now comfortably surpassed 21 Jump Street’s final total of £10.1m and will be looking to at least match Bad Neighbours'current total of £16m. Maleficent once again performed strongly adding a further £970k for a cume of £15.2m. It’s now a dead cert to surpass both Oz: The Great and Powerful (£15.3m) and Snow White and the Huntsman (£15.8m). X-Men: Days of Future Past added £565k in fourth and has now reached £25.8m.

Edge of Tomorrow completed the top five, falling a light 31% to £515k. The Tom Cruise sci-fi is obviously experiencing strong word of mouth as that’s its third decent hold in a row and it now has a cume of £6.6m. Two new entries landed in sixth and seventh in Jersey Boys and 3 Days To Kill. Jersey Boys opened with £416k, which is significantly lower than the £789k (once previews are removed) that Rock of Ages opened with in June 2012. 3 Days To Kill attempts to do for Kevin Costner what the Taken series has done for Liam Neeson and an opening weekend of £325k suggests it won’t manage it.

With the football World Cup still in full swing, the box office was up 19% from last weekend and down 30% from the same weekend last year, which saw the second week of Man of Steel and the opening week of World War Z.

Next Weekend

Chef is in cinemas on Wednesday and was a huge success at the June DCM Tuesdays. Mrs Brown’s Boys D’Movie opens on Friday and advanced ticket sales have been extremely strong. Summer themed jukebox musical Walking On Sunshine also opens and has been receiving positive reviews. For the more discerning cinema-goer, Cold In July is a pulpy, noir-ish treat.

The Buzz

Transformers: Age of Extinction opens on 5 July (Saturday) and is 166 (one hundred and sixty six) minutes long. The Variety review suggests that it is an improvement over the previous two films and that fans will not be disappointed.

Across The Pond

Think Like a Man Too debuted with $29.2m this weekend, which is a bit lower than the first Think Like a Man's $33.6m. The audience was 63% female and 59% over the age of 30. 22 Jump Street fell 51.9% to $27.5m and to date has earned $109.9m.

How to Train Your Dragon 2 fell a chunky 50% to $24.7m and so far has grossed $94.6m. It’s almost certain to fall short of the original’s $217.6m final total. Jersey Boys opened in fourth with $13.3m, which is lower than Rock of Ages ($14.4m) but an improvement over recent Eastwood movies J. Edgar ($11.2m), Hereafter ($12m) and Invictus ($8.6m). 71% of the audience was over the age of 50. Maleficent completed the top five with $12.9m for a cume of $185.9m.