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The Weekend Round-up
For the final time (supposedly) a Middle Earth-set film opened at the top of the box office. The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies kicked off with £9.8m, which is the second highest opening weekend of the year, behind The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 (£10.3m) and it also set a Friday to Sunday record for the series. An Unexpected Journey opened with £11.6m in 2012 but £2.1m of that was from Thursday previews, so its Friday to Sunday total was £9.5m. The Desolation Of Smaug had a Friday start last year and managed £9.3m in its first weekend.
Paddington fell to second but still had a strong hold, falling 24% to £2.9m and a terrific cume of £14.3m. I’d put money on it finishing 2014 in the top ten performing films of the year and on Sunday it overtook Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (£14.2m) to become distributor, StudioCanal’s biggest film of all time. Four of the top six films on that list have been released in 2014: Paddington, The Imitation Game, Non-Stop and Robocop, so it has been a stellar year for them.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 fell 52% to £1.1m in third, which is a greater drop than Catching Fire experienced on its fourth weekend and it’s now pretty clear that Mockingjay Part 1 is going to fall short of that film’s final total of £34.2m. Penguins Of Madagascar fell to fourth, adding £1.1m and just crossing the £3m in the process. The Imitation Game completed the top five, adding another £535k for a sensational cume of £12.4m.
The only other major new release in the top 15 was Tinker Bell And The Legend Of The NeverBeast, which opened with £395k. This is the second Tinker Bell film to be released in 2014 and the first one, Tinker Bell And The Pirate Fairy, kicked off with £966k in February. A better comparison would be Tinker Bell And The Secret Of The Wings, which opened in December 2012 with £529k, so £395k is slightly disappointing but NeverBeast will be hoping for more once the school holidays kick off.
Overall the box office was up 47% from last weekend and also up 4% from the same weekend last year, when The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug took the top spot and Frozen continued to perform strongly in its second weekend.
Next Weekend
As we move into the Christmas holidays the biggest new release is Night At The Museum 3: Secret Of The Tomb. The previous two films in the series both banked over £20m in the UK but with the fierce competition for the family audience this year, this third instalment may have set its sights slightly lower. Dumb & Dumber To will be aiming for the nostalgia-fuelled comedy crowd and Annie will also be aiming for a piece of the family pie when it’s released on Saturday.
The Buzz
Into The Woods is potentially one of the big January releases and its awards credentials received a boost last Thursday when it received a Golden Globes nomination for Best Picture (Musical or Comedy). Also a big winner when the Golden Globes nominations were announced was The Theory Of Everything, which picked up four nominations, including Best Picture (Drama), Best Actor (Eddie Redmayne) and Best Actress (Felicity Jones). It’s out on new year’s day.
Across The Pond
Ridley Scott’s biblical epic, Exodus: Gods and Kings topped the box office, opening with $24.1m. The obvious comparison is Noah, which opened to $43.7m in March. Exodus is obviously way down on that figure, but should hold up solidly over Christmas. The audience was 54% male and 65% over the age of 25. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 fell to second, falling 42% to $12.7m and to date has banked $276.9m. Third spot was taken by Penguins of Madagascar, which added $7.2m for a cume of $58.7m. Fourth place was taken by another new entry, Chris Rock comedy Top Five, which has been very warmly received by critics and kicked off with $6.9m this weekend. The top five was completed by Big Hero 6, which took fifth place with $6.1 for an impressive cume of $185.2m.
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