UK Box Office – 4th - 6th May

The Avengers Assemble 3D juggernaut shows little signs of slowing down as another mammoth weekend sees the film cross the £30m barrier. A further £8.1m from Friday to Sunday and £3.5m on Monday takes the film to £33.4m, a figure that would have placed it fourth on 2011’s list of highest grossing films. Although it has some way to go to eclipse 2011’s second place film, The King’s Speech, you wouldn’t bet against it passing that film’s final total of £45.7m. It goes without saying that Avengers Assemble 3D is now near the very top of the list of most successful comic book films with only The Dark Knight (£49.1m) ahead of it.

On a weekend with a large number of new releases, it was clear that the UK public are still open to another helping of American Pie. A £4.5m Friday to Sunday opening for American Pie: Reunion compares favourably with the last theatrically released American Pie film’s debut (The Wedding - £4.2m) but its someway short of American Pie 2’s £5.5m opening. With a cume total of £7.8m including previews and bank holiday Monday, the film is already over half way to overtaking the first American Pie’s final total of £14m.

Spots 3 – 5 in the top 10 were also taken up with new releases, with Zac Efron weepie The Lucky One (£1.2m, including £329k from previews) holding off both Beauty and the Beast 3D (£685k) and Jason Statham bone cruncher Safe (£680k). Safe’s performance is better than Jason Statham’s most recent couple of films Blitz (£266k) and Killer Elite (£481k) but not quite as good as The Mechanic (£922k). Beauty And The Beast 3D had a strong bank holiday Monday and now has a cume total of £1.2m. Including Monday, The Lucky One’s cume is £1.5m and Safe is on £920k. The final new entry in the top 15 was horror Silent House in ninth place with £215k (£285k cume).

One other notable occurrence was The Hunger Games crossing the £23m mark. Its reign as the number 1 film of 2012 so far only lasted a week but it’s still a fantastic performance and bodes well for the release of the next book in the series, Catching Fire in November 2013. Overall the box office was up a sizeable 91% from the same weekend last year.

Across the Atlantic box office records were smashed as The Avengers opened to an unprecedented $207.4m. This absolutely trounced the previous all-time weekend record set by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt 2 last Summer ($169.2m). After just three days in cinemas The Avengers has already taken more than Thor ($181m), Captain America: The First Avenger ($176.6m) and The Incredible Hulk ($134.8m) made in their total run. $207.4m also accounted for a whopping 83.1% of the $249.7m the Top 12 earned this weekend, which is the second-highest weekend market share ever. Trailing in The Avengers’ wake, the best performing of the rest of the titles were Think Like a Man with $8.1m, The Hunger Games with $5.6m and The Lucky One with $5.4m. Way down in 16th place was a great performance from a home-grown hit. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel opened on just 27 locations but grossed $737k for a very strong location average of $27k. With expansion planned expect a decent next few weeks for the charming British comedy.

Source: Rentrak EDI.