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| Author | Zoe Aresti |
The Weekend Box Office Round-up
The Christmas period has always offered a great opportunity for films to reach audiences in the cinema and this year the major winner was Spider-Man: No Way Home. Over the New Year weekend it added £6.1m, which was in increase of 31% from the previous Christmas weekend. That takes its total after 19 days in cinemas to a remarkable £70m, and including Bank Holiday Monday it’s now up to £72.2m, making it the 13th highest grossing film of ALL TIME in the UK & Ireland. Over the next day or so it will climb into the top 10 and it looks likely to get to at least seventh spot by the end of its run. That position is currently occupied by Star Wars: The Last Jedi, which finished its run on £82.7m, while sixth spot is taken by Avengers: Endgame on £88.7m, which is also the biggest MCU film of all time. No Way Home is now the second biggest MCU (and superhero) film of all time, having just overtaken Avengers: Infinity War (£70.7m). Also, just a reminder that the last Spider-Man film, Far From Home, finished on £37.3m, so No Way Home will more than double that figure.
Second spot was taken by The King’s Man, which opened with £3.5m, which includes £2.4m from previews after opening on Boxing Day. It added a further £418k on Bank Holiday Monday and is now on £3.9m. This is a prequel to the Kingsman films with a whole new cast and while it wasn’t expected to match The Kingsman: The Golden Circle’s final total of £24.9m, this opening is a bit quieter than expected. In more positive news, Comscore are reporting that word-of-mouth appears to be good with their PostTrak exit poll, seeing the film awarded 4 stars out of 5 and a Total Positive rating of 84%, which increases to 88% among male cinemagoers.
Clifford The Big Red Dog had a better fourth weekend than it did on its second weekend, adding £779k, and a further £372k on Monday, taking its total to £6.4m. The Matrix Resurrections was the fourth biggest film and had a disappointing second weekend in cinemas, adding £760k over the weekend and £266k on Monday for a new total of £5.6m. I expect this will be the last film we’ll see in the series for a long while, as all three previous films in the series grossed over £17m in the UK & Ireland, with the second instalment, Reloaded, grossing over £33m.
West Side Story rounded out the top five, adding £398k, which was an increase of 87% from the previous weekend. Including Monday it’s now up to £5.3m and it has overtaken In The Heights (£4.6m) to be the highest grossing musical of 2021.
Outside of the top five, Encanto has crossed the £6m mark in sixth, despite being available on Disney+. House of Gucci still has hopes of reaching £9m in seventh, while Ghostbusters: Afterlife has just crossed the £11m mark in eighth and has surpassed the final total of the 2016 incarnation of Ghostbusters, which finished on £10.8m. The Palme d’Or winning Titane opened in ninth with £122k, which includes £93k after opening on Boxing Day. Including Monday, it’s now up to £135k.
Overall the box office is up 43% from last weekend.
Next Weekend
- Boiling Point is a one-take thriller starring Stephen Graham as a head chef at a top kitchen, who wrangles his team on the busiest day of the year.
- The 355 is an action thriller with a pretty great cast. When a top-secret weapon falls into mercenary hands, a wild card CIA agent joins forces with three international agents on a lethal mission to retrieve it, while staying a step ahead of a mysterious woman who's tracking their every move. Jessica Chastain, Lupita Nyong’o, Diane Kruger, and Penelope Cruz star.
Across The Pond
Spider-Man: No Way Home continued its remarkable run in North America, adding $56m, a drop of 34% from last weekend. That takes its total to an incredible $609m and it’s now in the top 10 films of ALL TIME in the US. Another Christmas success story is Sing 2, which opened in the US on 22 December. Since then it has grossed a terrific $89.7m and fell just 12% this past weekend to $19.6m. It should add a good deal more over the coming weeks ahead of its opening in the UK on 28 January. The King's Man came in third, adding $4.5m, a drop of 24% from last weekend which takes its total to $19.5m. American Underdog came in fourth, adding $4.1m for a new total of $15m after two weeks. The Matrix Resurrections completed the top five, falling a huge 68% in its second weekend to $3.8m. This one has really struggled to connect with audiences and is now up to $30.9m.