UK Box Office 21 - 23 September

After The Sweeney’s previews prevented it from topping the box office last weekend, ParaNorman 3D gained his revenge emerging as the clear winner this weekend. With a great hold, easing just 12% to £1.2m, the stop-motion charmer has now grossed £2.9m in ten days. In second spot was the week’s highest new entry, Killing Them Softly. The brutal Brad Pitt crime drama opened with £955k, which is pretty similar to another Cannes premiering crime drama Lawless, which opened with £973k two weeks ago. Killing Them Softly has also been compared, perhaps inaccurately, to Drive which opened with £609k almost exactly a year ago.

In third spot was another new entry, Jennifer Lawrence thriller House At The End Of The Street or HATES, as it has come to be known. It turns out the audience didn’t hate it and a £796k debut is a perfectly respectable performance and far superior to another recent female star-led thriller in May’s Silent House (£215k). Last week’s number one The Sweeney fell a chunky 53% to £728k, although that figure falls to a more respectable 35% if you don’t include previews. The Ray Winstone crime drama now has a cume of £3m.

In sixth spot Anna Karenina had another very strong hold, easing just 14% to £625k for a cume of £3.9m. Once again there was little to choose between Lawless (£414k) and Dredd 3D (£382k) and they’ve now grossed £3.5m and £3.7m respectively. Just below are two underperforming new entries in Savages and Now Is Good. Savages couldn’t repeat it’s decent US performance opening with £380k and teen-drama Now Is Good opened with £317k (including £80k from previews).

In the US, End Of Watch topped an extremely tight box office, with less than $1m separating the top three. The Jake Gyllenhaal crime drama grossed $13.2m, while House At The End Of The Street was just behind with $12.3m. Clint Eastwood baseball drama Trouble With The Curve was in third spot with $12.7m. Outside the top 10,  The Perks of Being a Wallflower had a promising start grossing $244k from just four locations. It opens in the UK on 3 October and is one to look out for.