| Date | |
|---|---|
| Author | Tom Linay |
| Categories | box Office |
The Weekend Round-up
- Jumanji: The Next Level opened in the top spot with £9.5m, which includes a hefty £4.2m from previews. Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle had a similar release strategy two years ago and opened with £8.1m, which included £4.1m from previews. The Next Level has opened more strongly but Welcome To The Jungle held up brilliantly throughout the Christmas period, on its way to £38.5m, we’ll have to wait and see whether The Next Level can reach a similar figure.
- After holding the top spot for the last three weekends, Frozen II fell to second but posted a strong hold, dropping just 28% to £3.2m. That takes its total to £38.3m and it’s now the sixth biggest film of 2019 to date, having just overtaken Spider-Man: Far From Home (£37m) and Aladdin (£37.2m). This week it will overtake Captain Marvel for the fifth spot and it looks like it will have the legs to get to £50m. Once it gets to £43.2m, it will have overtaken the final total of the first Frozen.
- The UK public love a Christmas film and Last Christmas continues to charm them. The George Michael-inspired comedy fell just 3% to £1.3m and that takes it total to just shy of £15m. With nine days still to go until Christmas, it should add at least a couple of million more too.
- Knives Out is also holding up well, falling just 24% this week to £1.3m. That takes its total to £8.4m and it’s nailed on to hit £10m now, which is a terrific result for an original thriller in a crowded marketplace.
- While the top four all banked over £1.2m this weekend, there was a hefty drop after that with new entry Black Christmas completing the top five, opening with £284k. That figure includes £41k from previews and the seasonal horror may struggle to get to £1m by the end of its run.
- Outside of the top five, Blue Story added £230k in sixth, which was enough to take it over the £4m mark.
Overall the box office is up 67% from last weekend and up 8% from the same weekend last year when the top films were Aquaman, Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse, The Grinch and Ralph Breaks The Internet.
Next Weekend
- Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker is the final part in the Skywalker saga and sees the surviving Resistance face the First Order once more. It’s set to be one of the biggest films of the year and is in cinemas on Thursday.
- Cats is an adaptation of one of the most popular stage musicals of all-time. A tribe of cats called the Jellicles must decide yearly which one will ascend to the Heaviside Layer and come back to a new Jellicle life.
The Buzz
Parasite is Palme d’Or winning thriller from Bong Joon Ho that is set to shake things up at next year’s Oscars and BAFTAs. It’s the tale of an unemployed Korean family who begin to take peculiar interest in the wealthy and glamorous Park family. As they ingratiate themselves into their lives, they get entangled in an unexpected incident. It played around London last week and a few DCMers were in attendance. Korrine Eshun said it’s a ‘must see film that’s the ultimate tense and thrilling cinema experience’, Grant Gulczynski called it a ‘wickedly crowd pleasing satire that deconstructs South Korean class structure’. Mike Tull went big, saying it’s a ‘real crowd-pleaser that’s full of thrilling twists, humour and emotion.’
Next Weekend
- Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker is the final part in the Skywalker saga and sees the surviving Resistance face the First Order once more. It’s set to be one of the biggest films of the year and is in cinemas on Thursday.
- Cats is an adaptation of one of the most popular stage musicals of all-time. A tribe of cats called the Jellicles must decide yearly which one will ascend to the Heaviside Layer and come back to a new Jellicle life.
The Buzz
Parasite is Palme d’Or winning thriller from Bong Joon Ho that is set to shake things up at next year’s Oscars and BAFTAs. It’s the tale of an unemployed Korean family who begin to take peculiar interest in the wealthy and glamorous Park family. As they ingratiate themselves into their lives, they get entangled in an unexpected incident. It played around London last week and a few DCMers were in attendance. Korrine Eshun said it’s a ‘must see film that’s the ultimate tense and thrilling cinema experience’, Grant Gulczynski called it a ‘wickedly crowd pleasing satire that deconstructs South Korean class structure’. Mike Tull went big, saying it’s a ‘real crowd-pleaser that’s full of thrilling twists, humour and emotion.’ Antonio Garcia said it’s ‘funny, wacky, shocking – a classic Korean genre-bending edge-of-your-seat thrill ride’. It’s in cinemas on 7 February and if DCM are anything to go by, it’s unmissable.
Across The Pond
Jumanji: The Next Level opened in the top spot with $60.1m, which is an improvement over the $52.7m that Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle opened with in 2017. That film finished on $404m, so that’s the target for The Next Level. After three weekends on top, Frozen II added $19.2m which takes its total to $366.5m. Knives Out came in third, adding $9.3m for a new total of $78.9m. Richard Jewell opened in fourth with $5m and Black Christmas opened in fifth with $4.4m.