Honest Abe takes the top of the Box Office but in a slightly dishonest way…

1. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (460 sites) W/E: £1,119,117 NEW (Includes W/Th previews)

2. Men in Black 3 (500) W/E: £1,072,033 Total: £19,062,351

3. The Five-Year Engagement (457) W/E: £1,058,897 NEW

4. Prometheus (436) W/E: £1,029,758 Total: £21,641,986

5. Snow White and the Huntsman (470) W/E: £870,402 Total: £13,413,970

6. Rock of Ages (474) W/E: £501,095 Total: £2,015,192

7. Chernobyl Diaries (289) W/E: £495,875 NEW

8. Avengers Assemble (215) W/E: £248,695 Total: £51,344,770

9. Teri Meri Kahani (53) W/E: £190,230 NEW

10. Top Cat (406) W/E: £179,427 Total: £2,479,427

Source: The Guardian

On the face of it, the number one debut of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter looks like a bit of a success, giving Fox their second number one film of June after Prometheus. When once we a look a little deeper, the sheen soon comes off. Boosted by two days of previews, without those the film would have debuted lower, though its fair to say the Fri – Sun grosses would have been higher in that case as there would have been more people coming out to see it on those specific days. Also add to this the fact that the US opening of around $15 million would usually translate to a three-day gross of around £1.5 million, and again things look poorer. Add to this the fact that this is the lowest grossing number one of the month, following on from Prometheus being top three weeks in a row and all of a sudden it looks
like less of a victory and more a comment on just how weak the UK Box Office has been this month, with little to really get excited about content wise as the Euros continue to play out. Personally I really enjoyed the film, far more than most it seems, but it would be only the most deluded who would look to this result and crow about it. I’d very much expect a large drop-off going into this weekend.

Continuing to stun in its fifth weekend at the Box Office is Men In Black 3, which impressively only drops of around a third with the film heading up to the £20 million mark as I type. I’ve been talking about the surprises this film has made for weeks now so I’m sounding like a broken record, but despite Prometheus’ performance, I think this is probably the success story of the month, and especially when you look at how the film started out, on what was the hottest weekend of the year.

Our next new entry sees The Five-Year Engagement open to an OK-enough Box Office which will likely lead to a healthier run than the other newer films out there. Despite top-lining a few films now, Jason Segel still isn’t quite an A-list star and Emily Blunt hasn’t been able to properly crack through either, but this is a result which will be looked upon pretty favourably. Bridesmaids has become the Apatow benchmark at the UK Box Office and this won’t be nearly as successful as that, that film having hung around the chart virtually all summer last year. This is a result which won’t be received massively warmly, but won’t be seen as a disaster either. It also has the benefit of not having much direct competition this coming week and so it could have a decent drop-off, especially with England now out of the football.

Two chart mainstays follow as Prometheus finally gets knocked off the top spot but has made over £20 million in four weekends, a result very much helped by the lack of competition, offering some of the only even relatively new blockbuster fare, though Snow White has also done well through this with that film actually having a far better drop-off than Prometheus week-on-week, the former chart topper dropping around a half with SWATH only dipping around a third. Both films will be looking to make exits relatively quickly as July starts bringing fresher popcorn flicks, really starting with The Amazing Spider-Man next week. Faring much worse is Rock of Ages which dips over 50% week-on-week though it did have two days of previews last week. Still, a take of only two million after two full weekends is going to be a huge disappointment to Warner, and I certainly expected the film to break through at a far bigger rate. I’m sure they did too.

Proving yet again that horror at the summer cinema doesn’t really work, StudioCanal take a swing and kinda miss with the opening weekend of Chernobyl Diaries which with a wide-ish release which hasn’t really connected. The trailers for this one had “Just watch it on Lovefilm” all over it, and while I didn’t think it was actually all that bad, it’s just not an effort that will get people making a date to go into the dark cinema at this time of year, even if its “presented” by Mr. Paranormal Activity, Oren Peli.

Finishing up for the week, we have Teri Meri Kahani which is the first Bollywood film in a while to make an entry in the Top Ten and on a limited screen count manages to make an impressive per-screen average, which again proves the appetite for these films. Top Cat drops less than a third, but with Ice Age 4 having previews this weekend, that’s going to be the end for TC I’d think.

This week sees another raft of quieter films come out hoping to make some money before Spidey’s return next week, as eOne go ambitiously  wide with the already- infamous Killer Joe, Universal take a bet on Noel Clarke writing a horror with Storage 24, Lionsgate unleash the well publicised Friends With Kids and Metrodome hope to score a word-of-mouth hit with horror Lovely Molly. I’m expecting it to be a quiet weekend though if the weather continues to underwhelm, we could see some success for these. I’m particularly interested in seeing how Killer Joe does with an Edinburgh premiere last week which has gained it more attention than it may have otherwise. Let’s see next week!