UK Box Office 1 - 3 March 2013

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters 3D defied the critics to top the box office this weekend with £1.5m (including £404k from previews). That compares very favourably with the tonally similar Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, which achieved £1.1m (including £375k from previews) in June of last year. A sizeable 90.7% of Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters 3D gross was from 3D presentations.

Wreck-It Ralph 3D dropped one place to second with £1.4m, which saw him comfortably break the £20m mark. Expect it to finish around Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted’s mark of £22.8m. Mama continued to perform strongly, easing just 30% to £1.1m and a healthy cume of £3.5m. A total in the region of £5m now looks very achievable. A Good Day To Die Hard experienced another sharp drop, with £824k and a cume just shy of £10m. It’s now certain to finish below Die Hard 4.0’s final total (£13.9m). The top five was completed by Nicholas Sparks’ adaptation, Safe Haven. An £812k opening was a little shy of the last Sparks adaptation, The Lucky One’s £1.2m opening last May but that had the star power of Zac Efron to propel it.

A couple of notable occurrences in the lower end of the top ten, with Argo, fresh from BAFTA and Oscar success, coming back into the top ten on its 17th week of release and striking drama, Stoker making a disappointing bow in tenth with just £368k. Strong word of mouth could spur Stoker on to greater things. On a quiet weekend the box office was down 21% from last weekend and down 22% from the same weekend last year. Next week should pick up though with the potential behemoth, Oz: The Great And Powerful 3D on release.

Across the pond, Jack the Giant Slayer wound up in first place with $28m. That's lower than last year’s March contender, John Carter ($30.2m) and Jack's audience was 55% male and 56% 25+. On its fourth weekend, Identity Thief continued to perform strongly with $9.7m and a cume of $107.4m. Teen comedy, 21 and Over started slowly with $9m, which is less than half of what Project X opened with last year. The Last Exorcism Part II opened in fourth with just over $8m, which is way down on the original Last Exorcism's $20.4m in August 2010. The audience breakdown was 52% male and 65% under the age of 25. In fifth place, Snitch fell 42% to an estimated $7.7m and after 10 days in cinemas The Rock’s thriller has grossed $24.4m.