#UK Box Office

For the third weekend in succession, animated hit The Croods proved to be cinema’s biggest draw. A further £2.4m takes its cume to £17.7m and it now sits behind Les Misérables and Wreck-It Ralph 3D as the third highest grossing film released so far this year. With another week of the Easter holidays left, £20m-plus is a certainty.

GI Joe: Retaliation 3D held on to the second spot with £1.1m and has a cume of £5.6m. It’s now less than £1m behind the first G.I. Joe’s final total of £6.5m, which it should have overtaken by this time next week.

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Oz: The Great And Powerful 3D dominated the box office this weekend with a fantastic debut of £3.7m, the third highest opening of the year so far. Compare this to the opening weekend of Charlie and The Chocolate Factory back in 2005 (£7.9m), not quite as impressive perhaps, but the thing to bear in mind here is that title released at the height of the summer holidays. Oz will be on release over the upcoming Easter break, giving it a chance to catch up with Charlie’s final box office taking of £37.2m.

In the second slot of the top five, Steven Soderbergh’s Side Effects began its run with a positive start, clocking up £905k. Soderbergh’s last thriller, Haywire, debuted with £864k in 2011.

Third place was taken by Disney’s Wreck-It Ralph 3D, with £745k, bringing its cume up to £21.4m. This is now within a hairs breadth of Brave’s £21.5m final cume, expect this to be exceeded within the next week.

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For the third week in a row the top two spots were filled by the same films. Les Misérables was number one for the fourth successive weekend, falling just 31% to £2.8m and crossing the magic mark of £30m in the process. It now sits on £30.1m and with a way to go yet is laying a strong early claim to be the biggest film of the year. Django Unchained held onto second spot easing 30% to £1.7m and has joined the limited club of 18-cert films to cross the £10m mark. It now sits on £10.3m and may have the legs to beat Pulp Fiction (£12.7m) and become Tarantino’s most successful film.

The highest new entry, landing in third spot was Denzel Washington thriller Flight. A £1.4m debut is a decent start and we’re seeing most awards films holding up very well from week-to-week so expect the same with this one. Proving this theory, Lincoln fell just 17% to £1.4m in fourth spot and after 10 days has grossed a solid £4.2m. Life Of Pi 3D rounded out the top five with yet another strong hold falling 24% to £843k and a magnificent cume of £27.3m.

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Congratulations to all our exhibitors for making cinema a Blockbuster year in 2012. Fuelled by titles such as The Dark Knight Rises, Marvel’s Avengers Assemble and the record breaking Skyfall. UK and Ireland Box Office ticket sales exceeded the £1 billion mark for the fourth consecutive year, which equates to admissions of over 172 million people.

In a year dominated by landmark entertainment events in the UK, such as the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics, this is an impressive feat. The exact total across UK & Ireland was £1,172,037,248.

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The top two films from last weekend held on to their places and both experienced strong holds on another impressive weekend for the box office. The snowy conditions last week obviously hampered Les Misérables as it bounced back easing a miniscule 9% to £4m and a huge cume of £24.6m. On Saturday it overtook High School Musical 3 (£22.8m) and now the only musical ahead of it on the all-time list is Mamma Mia with £68.5m. Django Unchained fell just 14% to £2.4m and now has a cume of £7.2m. Despite opening lower than Inglourious Basterds, its final total of £10.9m looks very achievable.

In third spot was another awards hopeful and the highest new entry, Lincoln, with £1.7m. That’s a very solid start and as the BAFTAs and Oscars get closer, it should continue to perform strongly. Fourth place was taken by Life of Pi 3D, which crossed the £25m mark with a further £1.1m and now stands on a spectacular £25.9m, a total that would have put it 8 on the list of 2012’s biggest films. Another new entry rounded out the top five, with Zero Dark Thirty opening with £1.1m. That’s significantly more than Kathryn Bigelow’s last film, The Hurt Locker, which opened with £309k in 2009.

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Despite the snowy conditions across the country the strength of the films currently on release was more than enough to tempt people into the warmth of the cinema. Les Misérables was once again the top film easing 46% to £4.4m and a very healthy cume of £17.4m. That’s already more than the entire run of Chicago (£16.4m) and closing in on Moulin Rouge’s final total of £18.5m. The highest new entry, in second spot was Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained with £2.8m. That’s a bit lower than Inglourious Basterds’ £3.6m debut but the adverse weather conditions wouldn’t have helped. Kill Bill Vol. 2 also opened with £2.8m in 2004.

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Cinema continues to pull in the crowds and it is now thirteen consecutive weeks that the box office has been up on the equivalent weekend last year. Although a number of films delivered strong performances this weekend, by far the most impressive was blockbuster musical Les Misérables. It followed up its nine BAFTA nominations on Wednesday with an £8.1m opening. That’s the highest ever debut for a musical film and perhaps surprisingly, it’s Universal’s biggest opening weekend of all time. Last January the marquee theatre adaptation was War Horse but that could only manage a £3.9m opening.

Also boosted by its nine BAFTA nominations, Life Of Pi 3D once again continued its stunning performance easing just 30% to £2.3m and a cume of £21.9m. With the Oscars and BAFTAs both a few weeks away, expect that total to at least get very near £30m. Glossy crime drama Gangster Squad was in third place with £2.1m (including £275k from previews). That’s not far off from Public Enemies’ £2.2m debut in 2009. In fourth spot, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey 3D edged even closer to £50m with £1.9m taking its total to £48.5m. True life family drama, The Impossible rounded out the top five, continuing its strong run with another £1.9m taking its cume to £7.2m. One other new entry landed just outside the top 5, with 3D horror sequel Texas Chainsaw 3D opening with £1.2m (including £584k from previews). The last Texas Chainsaw film only managed £1.5m over its entire run in 2006.

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Figures just released reveal that the week commencing 26 October 2012 saw the highest admissions to cinema in the UK this century, at over 7.5m. Furthermore, the month of October has seen industry admissions, which totalled 16.8m, up 24% from the same period in 2011 and the biggest October in terms of admissions for nearly a decade.

The release of the 23rd James Bond movie, Skyfall, has made this October huge. Bond’s return has easily beaten the one week box office record, previously held by Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows (£18.1m) with £33.1m.

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The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Pt 2 had the strongest second weekend for a Twilight film with £5.3m taking its cume to £27m after ten days. At the same point, Breaking Dawn Pt 1 had grossed £23.3m, which suggests that Breaking Dawn Pt 2 will finish a few million higher than that film’s final total of £31.1m.

On week four of Bond-watch, Skyfall is up to £89.6m and it is without question now a case of when, not if, it’ll pass Avatar’s final total of £94m to become the highest grossing film in UK history. The next question is whether it can reach £100m, a total that was almost unthinkable four weeks ago. Before the weekend it was £14.2m away from £100m and it grossed a further £3.8m over the weekend. Back in January, War Horse opened with just over £3.9m and went on to reach £18.6m. If Skyfall performs similarly, it should comfortably pass £100m.

The highest new entry, in third place was yuletide sequel, Nativity: Danger In The Manger. With £1.6m (including £18k from previews) it doubled the performance of the first Nativity film in 2009 (£786k). We can now expect it to easily pass that films final total of £5.3m. Fourth place was taken by another new entry, exhilarating rom-com, Silver Linings Playbook with £1.3m (including £292k from previews). For a film that has a very different feel to other romantic comedies, it’s tough to find a comparison but Love And Other Drugs was another edgy star led comedy and that opened with £1.6m in December 2010.

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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.

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