| Date | |
|---|---|
| Author | Tom Linay |
The Weekend Round-up
- Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw opened in the top spot with £6.4m, which includes £1.5m from Thursday previews. As a spin-off from the Fast & Furious series it was going to be interesting to see how this performed in comparison with the main series and it looks like it will fall short of the recent entries. 2017’s Fast & Furious 8 opened with £14m, which included £5.5m from two days of previews. It did fall quite fast in later weeks though, ending its run on £29.7m, so hopefully Hobbs & Shaw can hold up well across the school holidays and get past the £20m mark.
- Having topped the box office for the past two weekends, The Lion King fell to second but it still managed to post the weekend’s biggest Friday to Sunday total. It added £5.2m, a drop of 51% from last weekend. That takes its total to a huge £50.7m and its now tracking just 1% behind the biggest of Disney’s live-action adaptations of their animated classics, Beauty And The Beast, at the same stage of its run. With a month of the school holidays still to go, it has a great chance of finishing ahead of it.
- Toy Story 4 fell to third and after falling just 7% last weekend, it tumbled 47% this weekend to £1.3m. It’s now on £55.4m and is now the third biggest animated film of all time in the UK, behind Incredibles 2 (£56.2m) and Toy Story 4 (£74.1m). It should overtake Incredibles 2 in the next couple of days. It’s also still the second biggest film of 2019 so far, until The Lion King overtakes it over the next week.
- Spider-Man: Far From Home stayed in fourth, falling 50% to £863k. That takes its total to £32.9m and at some point in the next week it will overtake Spider-Man 3’s final total of £33.6m to be the highest grossing Spider-Man film.
- Angry Birds 2 rounded out the top five, kicking off its run with £698k. The first film opened with £2.1m in May 2016, so this sequel has seen major drop-off, despite being much better received by the critics (61 on Metacritic vs 43 for the first film).
- Outside of the top five, Yesterday crossed the £12m mark in sixth.
Overall the box office is down % from last weekend and down % from the same weekend last year when the top films were Ant-Man And The Wasp, Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again, Mission: Impossible Fallout and Incredibles 2.
Next Weekend
- Blinded By The Light is the latest comedy drama from Gurinder Chadha (Bend It Like Beckham, Angus Thongs And Perfect Snogging). Set in 1987 during the austere days of Thatcher's Britain, a teenager learns to live life, understand his family and find his own voice through the music of Bruce Springsteen.
- The Sun Is Also A Star is a romantic drama about a hopeless romantic medical student who falls for a hard-luck young woman who doesn't believe in love. Yara Shahidi and Charles Melton play the lovers.
- The Art Of Racing In The Rain is a comedy drama about a dog who, through a bond with his owner, aspiring Formula One race car driver Denny, golden retriever Enzo learns that the techniques needed on the racetrack can also be used to successfully navigate the journey of life.
- Playmobil: The Movie is an animated feature film inspired by the Playmobil brand toys. Anya Taylor-Joy and Daniel Radcliffe are among the voice cast.
The Buzz
The Farewell is a comedy drama that is one of the best reviewed films of the year. Awkwafina stars in the story of a Chinese family that discovers their grandmother has only a short while left to live and decide to keep her in the dark, scheduling a wedding to gather before she dies. Richard Roeper in the Chicago Sun Times said ‘This is a viewing experience to be treasured. It is one of the very best films of 2019.’ The Seattle Times were equally effusive, saying ‘The Farewell is so unexpectedly and deliciously funny that watching it feels like a tonic — an immersion in love and art.’ When it opened in the US a few weeks ago it received the highest screen average of the year so far, albeit in limited release and it’s now being talked up as a potential awards contender. It’s in UK cinemas on 20 September.
Across The Pond
Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw topped the box office in the US too, opening with $60.8m. Fast & Furious 8 opened with $98.8m, so this spin-off is not performing like a film in the main series. The Lion King came in second, falling 50% to $38.2m, which takes its total to $430.9m. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood fell 51% in third to $20m and that gives it a 10-day total of $78.8m. Spider-Man: Far from Home fell to fourth, adding $7.8m and that takes its total to an impressive $360.3m. Completing the top five is Toy Story 4, which added $7.2m for a new total of $410.1m.