UK Box Office 15 - 17 February 2013

It was a good weekend to Die Hard as the fifth installment in the franchise, A Good Day To Die Hard topped the box office. An opening weekend of £4.6m, including a whopping £1.3m from Valentine’s Day was enough to knock Wreck-It Ralph 3D into second place. Although it’s slightly lower than Die Hard 4.0’s £5m opening in 2007, which opened on a Wednesday, the previous installment had the benefit of an extra day.

Last week’s number one, Wreck-It Ralph 3D, dropped to number two, despite outperforming A Good Day To Die Hard from Friday to Sunday. A further £3.4m takes its cume to £10.5m and, with half term this week, expect the big performance to continue.

Third spot was taken by Judd Apatow comedy This Is 40, with a £1.2m opening (with £319k from previews). On its second weekend, I Give It A Year came in fifth spot and actually outperformed This Is 40 from Friday to Sunday with £1m for a healthy cume of £3.7m.

The second of 2013’s teen-fiction adaptations, Beautiful Creatures made a slow start in sixth spot with £1.1m (including £371k from Wednesday and Thursday previews). A Fri-Sun gross of £738k is lower than Warm Bodies’ £896k debut last week.

Overall the box office was up 18% from last weekend and 4% from the same weekend last year.

On a holiday weekend in the US, A Good Day To Die Hard grossed $25m from Fri-Sun for a four day total of $33.2m, which is a shade lower than Die Hard 4.0’s $38.3m four day total. Identity Thief continued its strong performance and, with a further $23.4m, became the biggest grossing film of 2013 so far with $70.7m. Nicholas Sparks’ adaptation Safe Haven opened in third place with $21.4m for a four day total of $30.3m, once again proving the popularity of Sparks’ stories. Family animation Escape From Planet Earth came in fourth with $16.1m, which is a solid start. Warm Bodies rounded out the top five with $9m for a cume of $50.2m.