UK Box Office 31 August - 2nd September

On Friday the exhibitors were imploring the populace to get their mass to ours, as the remake of Total Recall was finally on general release. The populace agreed and twenty two years after the original was released, the new Total Recall topped the UK box office with £2.8m (including £959k from previews).

In second spot and benefitting from the unusual step of opening on a Monday was all-star comedy The Watch with £2.2m (including £1.4m from previews).  Brave 3D continues to enchant adults and children alike with a further £1.6m over the weekend taking its cume to £17.9m. Ted still bears fruit, easing 42% to £989k for a  cume of £28.1m.

In fifth spot was another new entry with Exorcist-style horror, The Possession. A £979k debut (including £4k from previews) isn’t far off from the similarly themed The Last Exorcism (£1.1m) and The Haunting In Connecticut (£1.1m). The only other new entry in the top 15 was an Australian comedy with a British feel, A Few Best Men. The Hangover style romp grossed £264k. Overall the box office was up 2% from last weekend and 1% from the same weekend last year.

In the US, The Possession topped the box office with $17.7m and distributor Lionsgate said the audience was 59% female and 54% under the age of 25. Dusty prohibition thriller, Lawless opened in second place with $9.7 and a five-day total of $11.8m. The Expendables 2 fell 34% to an estimated $8.8m, bringing its total to $66.2m, which is approximately $16m away from where The Expendables was at the same point. The Bourne Legacy had a solid weekend, falling just 22% to $7.2m and the film now has a cume of $96.2m, and will pass $100m before the end of the week. ParaNorman 3D rounded out the Top Five with $6.6m and has now grossed a total of $38m.

Source: guardian.co.uk