UK Box Office 14th – 16th September
The Sweeney was out on its tod at the top of box office this weekend. The new Ray Winstone and Ben “Plan B” Drew version of the 70s television favourite opened to £1.5m, which included £433k from Wednesday and Thursday previews. British director Nick Love has not had huge success at the UK box office in the past but this is comfortably his biggest opening, almost tripling his previous best – 2007’s Outlaw (£586k). Outlaw is also Love’s highest grossing film outright, with £1.6m and The Sweeney almost beat that in one weekend.
Charming stop-motion animation ParaNorman 3D opened in second place with £1.4m and would have come out on top had it not been for The Sweeney’s previews. ParaNorman 3D is the second feature film from the American stop-motion animation studio Laika, with their first Coraline released in May 2009. Although it didn’t open as well as Coraline’s £2.4m debut, it’s still a decent start for an animation film outside of the school holidays.
