| Date | |
|---|---|
| Author | Mia Blakeney |
Box Office Round-up
For the sixth straight weekend, Wonka topped the box office adding £2.2m, a drop of 41% from last weekend. That takes its total to a huge £56.2m and its now the 33rd biggest film in UK & Ireland history. Over the next week it will overtake Dunkirk (£56.7m) and enter the all-time top 30. In terms of Paul King’s previous big Christmas films, it has smashed the final totals of Paddington (£38m) and Paddington 2 (£42.6m).
This week’s highest new entry is the critically adored and recent Golden Globe winner for Best Picture (musical or comedy) Poor Things. Despite an 18 certificate and risqué subject matter it opened with £1.8m, which includes £255k from previews. Last January’s big awards contenders, Empire Of Light, Babylon, and The Fabelsmans all under-performed, with Babylon coming out on top with £3.9m. Poor Things should sail past that and with the expected raft of BAFTA and Oscar nominations over the next few weeks, it should have a long and fruitful box office run.
Romantic comedy Anyone But You is quietly having a terrific box office run. After a quiet Boxing Day opening, it has held up well week-to-week and now on its third weekend, it has increased on last weekend by 14%! It added £1.2m for a new total of £5.4m. This is great news for the romantic comedy genre and it has already surpassed the final total of last June’s No Hard Feelings, which finished on £4m. It may not have the legs to get to the £9.9m that Ticket To Paradise finished on, but it’s going to get a lot closer than it looked like it would two weeks ago.
Anthony Hopkins starring tearjerker One Life is also having a great run, adding £1.2m for a new total of £5.9m. The obvious comparison is October’s The Great Escaper, starring Michael Caine and Glenda Jackson, but One Life has already surpassed that film’s final total of £5.3m. It has also surpassed 2022’s The Duke (£5.3m) and Mrs Harris Goes To Paris (£5m), and last year’s The Unlikely Pilgrimage Of Harold Fry (£3.4m), making One Life one of the best performing films for the older audience since cinemas re-opened.
Rounding out the top five is another new entry, Jason Statham action film The Beekeeper. It opened with £956k (including £35k from previews). Outside of the Fast & Furious series and The Meg, Statham has had a rocky time in action films over the last decade, but The Beekeeper looks like comfortably topping the final total of September’s Expend4bles (£1.8m).
Outside of the top five, Priscilla has hit £2.2m in sixth and it’s now MUBI’s biggest film ever, having surpassed Aftersun (£1.8m). George Clooney’s latest directorial effort hasn’t hit the mark as The Boys In The Boat opened in 10th with £270k (including £19k from previews).
Next Weekend
Mean Girls is an adaptation of the Broadway musical, which is an adaptation of one of the best comedy films of the 21st century. Cady Heron is a hit with the Plastics, an A-list girl clique at her new school. But everything changes when she makes the mistake of falling for Aaron Samuels, the ex-boyfriend of alpha Plastic Regina George. It’s in cinemas from Wednesday and topped the box office in North America this weekend (see below).
The Holdovers reunites Paul Giamatti and Alexander Payne for the first time since Sideways. Giamatti, who last week won a Golden Globe for his performance, plays a cranky history teacher at a remote prep school who is forced to remain on campus over the holidays with a troubled student who has no place to go.
The Book Of Clarence is a comedy-drama starring LaKeith Stanfield, Alfre Woodard, Micheal Ward and James McAvoy. Struggling to find a better life, Clarence is captivated by the power of the rising Messiah and soon risks everything to carve a path to a divine existence.
The End We Start From stars Jodie Comer as a woman who tries to find her way home with her newborn while an environmental crisis submerges London in floodwaters.
The Buzz
Argylle is the latest film from Matthew Vaughn (The Kingsman series, Kick-Ass, X-Men: First Class) and is the third recent film produced by Apple that is coming to cinemas, after Killers Of The Flower Moon and Napoleon. Bryce Dallas Howard stars as an introverted spy novelist is drawn into the activities of a sinister underground syndicate, while the rest of the impressive cast includes Samuel L. Jackson, Henry Cavill, Dua Lipa, Ariana DeBose, Sam Rockwell and Bryan Cranston. It looks to be a fun, action-packed spy thriller and unlike Vaughn’s recent films, it’s a 12A certificate, so younger viewers can see it too. It looks to be one of the best films for 16-34s in Q1.
Across The Pond
On the Martin Luther King Day holiday weekend, the new musical adaptation of Mean Girls opened in the top spot with $28m, whilst The Beekeeper opened in second with $16.8m. Wonka is performing strongly in North America, adding $8.4m for a new total of $176.2m. Anyone But You is proving a word-of-mouth hit across the pond too, adding $6.9m, a drop of just 29% from last weekend, for a new total of $55.2m. Migration completed the top five, adding $6.2m for a new total of $85.8m.