UK Box Office 31 – 2 February 2014

For the third weekend in succession, the top two spots at the box office were taken by The Wolf of Wall Street and 12 Years a Slave. Martin Scorsese’s epic comedy had a strong hold, falling 34% to £2.4m and a cume of £15m. That puts it ninth on the list of biggest 18-cert films of all time and it will surely overtake Silence of the Lambs in fourth with £17.1m. The top two films in that list, Hannibal (£21.6m) and American Beauty (£21.3m), may be out of reach but if The Wolf Of Wall Street wins big at the upcoming Oscars and BAFTAs, it could get very close.

On its fourth weekend, 12 Years a Slave added £1.4m for a cume of £13.7m. It’s looking increasingly likely that Steve McQueen’s drama could overtake the final total of last year’s Django Unchained (£15.7m), which would be a terrific result that few people would have predicted a month ago. Third spot was taken by the highest new entry, Zac Efron comedy, That Awkward Moment, with £961k (including £184k from previews). That’s a vast improvement over both of Efron’s 2013 live-action releases, The Paperboy (£142k) and Parkland (£114k).

Fourth spot was taken by another new entry, Aaron Eckhart action-fantasy, I Frankenstein, with £811k (including £163k from previews). Frozen completed the top five and saw its weekend box office dip below £1m for the first time since release. A further £778k brought the Disney animation’s cume to £36.5m.

One other new entry made a dent in the top 10, Mark Wahlberg war drama, Lone Survivor, which opened with £752k. Distributor Universal placed it on a similar weekend to last year’s Zero Dark Thirty, but it couldn’t replicate that film’s £1.1m debut.

Overall, the box office was down 25% from last weekend and down 15% from the same weekend last year, which saw Les Misérables and Django Unchained continue to perform strongly, and new entry, Flight, open well.

In the US, Ride Along once again topped the box office falling 42% to $12.3m and now has a cume of $93m. Frozen added a further $9.3m, which is an increase of 2% from last weekend, which can be attributed to the addition of the Sing-Along version of the film. The Disney animation has now grossed $360m. Third place was taken by That Awkward Moment, which opened with $9m and the audience was 64% female and 61% under the age of 25. In fourth, The Nut Job fell 37% to $7.6m and now has a cume of $50.2m. Lone Survivor completed the top five with $7.2m and a strong cume of $104.9m.