UK Box Office 23 - 25 November 2012

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Pt 2 had the strongest second weekend for a Twilight film with £5.3m taking its cume to £27m after ten days. At the same point, Breaking Dawn Pt 1 had grossed £23.3m, which suggests that Breaking Dawn Pt 2 will finish a few million higher than that film’s final total of £31.1m.

On week four of Bond-watch, Skyfall is up to £89.6m and it is without question now a case of when, not if, it’ll pass Avatar’s final total of £94m to become the highest grossing film in UK history. The next question is whether it can reach £100m, a total that was almost unthinkable four weeks ago. Before the weekend it was £14.2m away from £100m and it grossed a further £3.8m over the weekend. Back in January, War Horse opened with just over £3.9m and went on to reach £18.6m. If Skyfall performs similarly, it should comfortably pass £100m.

The highest new entry, in third place was yuletide sequel, Nativity: Danger In The Manger. With £1.6m (including £18k from previews) it doubled the performance of the first Nativity film in 2009 (£786k). We can now expect it to easily pass that films final total of £5.3m. Fourth place was taken by another new entry, exhilarating rom-com, Silver Linings Playbook with £1.3m (including £292k from previews). For a film that has a very different feel to other romantic comedies, it’s tough to find a comparison but Love And Other Drugs was another edgy star led comedy and that opened with £1.6m in December 2010.

Gambit just squeezed into fifth spot with £689k thanks to two days of previews (£188k), narrowly beating Madagascar 3 (£637k)and End of Watch (£619k). The latter was directed by David Ayer, and coincidentally his last film, Street Kings, which also focussed on the LAPD, opened with £620k in 2008. Overall the box office was down 40% from last weekend but up 36% from the same weekend last year.

On Thanksgiving weekend in the US, Breaking Dawn Part 2 grossed $43.1m from Friday to Sunday, which, like its UK performance, is the highest-grossing second weekend for a Twilight film. It now has a cume of $227m. As it is in the UK, Skyfall is breaking records for a Bond film in the US. After adding $36m on Fri – Sun, it now stands at $221.7m, which is considerably more than the previous highest grossing Bond film, Quantum of Solace ($168.4m). Lincoln also continued its impressive performance, actually improving on last weekend by 19% to $25m and a cume of $62.2m. Rise of the Guardians debuted in fourth to an unspectacular $24m from Fri – Sun and $32.6m since its Wednesday opening. With the Christmas theme, it should perform well over the coming weeks. Life of Pi was just behind RotG in fifth place with $22m for the three-day weekend and $30.2m since Wednesday. The movie's audience was 52% male and 60% were 25 years of age and up.

Source: Rentrak EDI