| Date | |
|---|---|
| Author | DCM |
| Categories | box Office |
Disney’s sci-fi fantasy epic, John Carter 3D topped the weekend’s box office with £2m. It’s a decent performance from a film that many had been predicting to fail. The obvious point of comparison is Disney’s last fantasy epic, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, which kicked off its cinema run with £1.4m in May 2010. That film went on to gross £8.7m in total. John Carter 3D also had a stronger opening than last year’s fantasy epic, Cowboys and Aliens, which opened to £1.8m in August.
In second place with a further £1.8m was The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Easing just 24% from last weekend this was another strong performance from a film on its third weekend on release and it now has a cume total of £10.9m. In third place with its fifth £1m+ weekend in succession was The Woman In Black. This time around it took £1.1m and on Friday cantered past War Horse to become the highest grossing film in the UK so far this year with a cume total of £19.5m.
In sixth place, The Muppets crossed the £15m mark with a further £667k. This is a fantastic performance, especially considering that no previous Muppets film had taken more than £3.1m at the UK box office. In eighth and ninth place were two new entries, The Raven and Bel Ami. Both fell just shy of £300k with £299k and £296k (with £6k from previews) respectively. In tenth place The Artist took a further £211k, which saw its cume total cross the £9m mark on its 11th week on release.
Overall, on a weekend of sunny spring like weather the top 15 total was down 21% on last weekend and down 4% from the same weekend last year.
Stateside, The Lorax fell 44% to an estimated $39.1m and has now taken $122m after ten days. John Carter 3D opened to an estimated $30.6m from 3,749 locations. Like in the UK its opening was slightly above that of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time ($30.1m). The audience was 63% male and 59% over the age of 25. Project X added an estimated $11.6m for a 10-day total of $40.1m and horror film, Silent House was a new entry in fourth place with an estimated $7m. Safe House eased 32% to an estimated $5m and now has a cume of $115.8m. In limited release, Friends with Kids, which reunites much of the Bridesmaids cast, opened in 13th place with $2.2m from 374 locations.