Box Office

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.

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Metaphorically this ship is still sailing as the 3D re-release of Titanic cruised to the top of the UK box office with £2.9m (including £97k from previews). Although this is a is a good deal fewer than the original Titanic’s £4.8m opening weekend in 1997, it’s a big improvement on Star Wars – Episode 1’s 3D re-release in February (£1.5m) and similar to The Lion King 3D’s performance in October (£2.8m). Love for the epic film is still high and its performance is particularly impressive when you consider that the film is 194 minutes long, so less screenings can be scheduled per day. Including Easter Monday, James Cameron’s lavish romance has a cume of £3.9m.

In second place after another strong weekend was The Hunger Games. A further £2.4m, just a drop of 20%, takes the thriller to a very impressive £16.2m (including Monday). Although it may fall short of New Moon’s £27.5m total, it is already way ahead of the first Twilight’s £11.2m final total. Just behind in third place was Mirror Mirror, also with £2.4m. This weekend figure is inflated due to the film opening on Monday 2^nd, so includes £1.3m from previews. Including Easter Monday, the film now has a cume of £3m. In fourth place was The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists with £2.2m. This is a fantastic hold for the film, actually improving on its opening weekend when the figure for previews is removed. Strong word of mouth should be in full flow for this title and its cume is now at £9.1m.

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The Vatican may not have wanted anyone to see it but a large number of people did anyway as The Devil Inside topped the weekend’s box office. The found footage exorcism horror grossed an impressive £2m, which is significantly more than the similarly themed Exorcism of Emily Rose (£1.3m) and The Last Exorcism (£1.1m). In second place was the brilliantly funny 21 Jump Street with £1.6m.

In third place, fractionally behind 21 Jump Street, was The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel with £1.5m. Easing just 14% from last weekend, this is the fourth £1m plus weekend in a row for the India set comedy and it now has a cume total of £13.9m. In fifth and sixth place were two more new entries, We Bought A Zoo and Contraband.

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Disney’s sci-fi fantasy epic, John Carter 3D topped the weekend’s box office with £2m. It’s a decent performance from a film that many had been predicting to fail. The obvious point of comparison is Disney’s last fantasy epic, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, which kicked off its cinema run with £1.4m in May 2010. That film went on to gross £8.7m in total. John Carter 3D also had a stronger opening than last year’s fantasy epic, Cowboys and Aliens, which opened to £1.8m in August.

In second place with a further £1.8m was The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Easing just 24% from last weekend this was another strong performance from a film on its third weekend on release and it now has a cume total of £10.9m. In third place with its fifth £1m+ weekend in succession was The Woman In Black. This time around it took £1.1m and on Friday cantered past War Horse to become the highest grossing film in the UK so far this year with a cume total of £19.5m.

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A British film topped the UK box office for the fourth weekend in succession. This time it was the turn of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel with £2.3m on its second weekend on release, an improvement of 5% from last weekend. 2003’s Calendar Girls only managed to gross £1.9m on its second weekend on wide release, which suggests that The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel may get close to that film’s final total of £20.4m. It has now grossed a very impressive £7m after ten days in cinemas.

Despite failing to top the box office for the first time since release, The Woman In Black still took second place with a further £1.9m. This takes its cume total to £17.6m and it looks set to overtake War Horse (£18.3m) as the biggest grossing film of the year so far. As you may have read in the press last week, The Woman In Black is now the most successful British horror film of all time. A terrific result for distributor Momentum and the recently revived Hammer Films.

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Emulating the performance of War Horse in January, The Woman In Black managed to top the weekend’s box office for the third successive weekend. The period chiller grossed a further £2.4m taking its cume to £14.6m, which far outstrips the total gross of recent hit films involving the supernatural including all Paranormal Activity films (Paranormal Activity 2 being the most successful with £11m) and Insidious (£7.1m). It now lies second behind The King’s Speech (£45.7m) in the list of distributor Momentum’s most successful releases.

The weekend’s highest new entry was The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, in second place with £2.2m. Very much aimed at the more mature audience this opening comfortably beat the similarly aimed Ladies In Lavender (£423k), Mrs Henderson Presents (£752k) and Last Orders (£101k). It will have to perform spectacularly though to beat Calendar Girls’ total gross of £20.4m.

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On a strong weekend, the top two from last weekend managed to hold on to the top two spots and both managed to improve on last weekend’s performance. The last time this happened was January 2010 with Avatar and Sherlock Holmes at one and two and this time it’s The Woman In Black and The Muppets. There was very little to separate them but a further £3.5m for The Woman In Black, an 11% increase from last weekend, saw it come out on top and it now has ten day gross of £10.5m. The Muppets had to be content with £3.4m, a 29% improvement on last weekend, and a ten day gross of £10.7m.

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Thursday saw the launch of the most anticipated film of the year, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2. The box office figures hit magical highs with EDI data showing an enormous £23.8m scooped in its first three days! Not only is this the biggest three-day opening for the Harry Potter franchise, its the biggest UK opening weekend of all time!

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On the 20th of June DCM held a screening for the highly anticipated new film ‘Bridesmaids’. The film, which has been dubbed as the female equivalent to ‘The Hangover’, was attended by a gaggle of excited women eager to enjoy the screening.

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Brands including Audi, Anchor and LG are investing in significant cinema activity around the final Harry Potter film, which opens next month. Advertising slots in the first weekend of the much anticipated final in the franchise are already booked up and spots have been snapped up faster than for all the previous films as brands [...]

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