UK Box Office 14 - 16 February 2014

Everything was awesome this weekend for The LEGO Movie as it did fantastic (Lord) business, comfortably topping the box office. The hilarious animation opened with a huge £8.1m, which included £2.2m from previews. The most obvious comparative is last year’s Wreck-It Ralph, which drew on a similar type of nostalgia for many of the video game characters featured in the film. That film opened with a not inconsiderable £4.5m, which was the third highest opening for an animated film last year, only behind Despicable Me 2 (£10m) and Frozen (£4.7m). Wreck-It Ralph finished on £23.8m, so The LEGO Movie will now be looking at a total north of £30m.

Star-heavy comedy drama The Monuments Men opened in second place with £1.6m. That’s more than double the previous highest opening for a George Clooney directed film, beating The Ides of March’s £665k. Just behind was Robocop, which had a decent hold, falling 37% to £1.5m and a cume of £4.9m. By this time next week it will have overtaken the final total for the Total Recall remake (£5.7m).

Mr. Peabody And Sherman dropped to fourth with £1.4m for a cume of £5.8m and with half term this week, it should considerably add to that total. The Wolf of Wall Street completed the top five with £1.1m, taking its cume to £19.6m. Over the weekend it overtook Seven to become the third highest grossing 18-cert film of all time and it should have the legs to overtake American Beauty and Hannibal, to become the highest grossing 18-cert film of all time.

On a weekend with several new entries, Tinker Bell and the Pirate Fairy opened in sixth with £967k, which is comfortably the biggest opening for a Tinker Bell film. Nick Frost comedy Cuban Fury was just £644 behind Tinker Bell with £966k. Romantic drama Endless Love opened in eighth with £742k and brilliant Spike Jonze comedy, Her opened in eleventh with £449k. On a strong weekend, the box office was up 49% from last weekend and up 20% from the same weekend last year.

In the US, The LEGO Movie held on to the top spot, adding $48.8m for a cume of $129.1m. The remake of 80s comedy, About Last Night opened with $27m and the audience was 63% female and 57% over the age of 30. Robocop opened in third with $21.5m and the audience was 62% male and 64% over the age of 25. The Monuments Men added $15m in fourth spot and now has a healthy cume of $43.7m. Endless Love completed the top five with $13.4m. The weekend’s biggest disappointment was A New York Winter's Tale, which opened in seventh with just $7.8m.