Once again, the awards contenders ruled the box office this past weekend, with The Wolf of Wall Street and 12 Years a Slave comfortably taking the top two spots against competition from a seasoned action hero.
Martin Scorsese’s epic comedy fell just 22% to £3.6m and after 10 days in cinemas, has grossed £10.9m. Remarkably, that already makes it Martin Scorsese’s second most successful film ever, having overtaken Shutter Island (£10.8m), and by this time next week it will be his most successful film ever, with The Departed’s £12.9m firmly in its sights.
12 Years a Slave had another strong hold, falling only 27% to £2.2m for a cume of £11m. A comparable drama is last year’s Lincoln, which even with box office god, Steven Spielberg directing, could only manage £8.8m in its entire run. The aforementioned seasoned action hero, beaten into third place was Jack Ryan, who made his comeback in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. Chris Pine took over the role and duly delivered a box office best for the character with £1.3m.
Frozen once again put in a sterling performance, falling just 4% to £1.1m and a cume of £35.6m. That’s the eighth consecutive weekend that the Disney animation has grossed over £1m and not even Skyfall could manage that.
American Hustle completed the top five with £997k, taking it’s cume to £11.2m. Two awards hopefuls landed in sixth and seventh and both might be a bit disappointed with their performance. The Coen Brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival last year, but could only manage £718k on its opening weekend. It’s expanding into more cinemas this coming weekend. August: Osage County features Julia Roberts and Meryl Streep in Oscar nominated form, but that couldn’t inspire the film to any more than £537k on its first outing.
Overall the box office was down 18% from last weekend and down 12% from the same weekend last year, when Les Misérables and Django Unchained continue to pull in the crowds.
In the US, action comedy Ride Along fell 49% to $21.2m and after 10 days it has grossed $75.4m. Second spot was taken by Lone Survivor, which fell 43% on its third weekend to $12.6m and a cume of $93.6m. It will overtake last year’s Zero Dark Thirty ($95.7m) at some point this week. The Nut Job took third, falling 37% to $12.3m and now has a decent cume of $40.3m. Frozen was in fourth with $9m and a cume of $347.8m. Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit completed the top five with $8.8m and a cume of $30.2m.
