The summer box office finally re-ignites as The Amazing Spider-Man does an absolute storming first round in the UK this week.
1. The Amazing Spider-Man (552 sites) W/E: £11,091,972 NEW (Includes Tu/W/Th previews)
2. Ice Age 4: Continental Drift (135) W/E: £719,769 from 135 sites. Total: £2,327,078 (Republic of Ireland/Northern Ireland/Scotland only)
3. The Five-Year Engagement (437) W/E: £514,702 Total: £3,721,905
4. Katy Perry: Part of Me (326) W/E: £449,491 NEW (Includes Th previews)
5. Men in Black 3 (408) W/E: £389,853 Total: £21,021,162
6. Prometheus (296) W/E: £324,779 Total: £23,918,902
7. Snow White and the Huntsman (370) W/E: £312,318 Total: £15,129,299
8. Bol Bachchan (50) W/E: £160,941 NEW
9. Friends with Kids (259) W/E: £134,752 Total: £817,659
10. Killer Joe (92) W/E: £122,831 Total: £473,204
Source: The Guardian
With a marketplace starved of fresh, broad and defiantly mainstream material, it wasn’t all that much of a surprise that The Amazing Spider-Man opened number 1, though with figures of well over £10 million including three days of previews, I’m a little taken aback by just how well it did. Sony’s marketing force has been strongly felt for the film over the last few weeks and the 3D ticket prices will have also helped, but this would appear to show that audiences don’t think it’s “too soon” for a new Spider-Man, even if the resulting film isn’t even all that fresh itself. With one more weekend to make solid bank on a metric shitton of screens before the Bat arrives, and with school holidays starting soon, this will be looking to be a mainstay for most if not all the Summer, something Sony, who after the slow burn legs of Men In Black 3 are having a great season, will be immensely pleased with. Here’s hoping they make more of an effort to do something new with the second film.
Last week’s number one drops a place but there’s still not much to say as the real proof of how well Ice Age 4 is doing will come next week when the film’s two weeks of England/Wales previews, along with a general Fri – Sun three-day total will be included. I’d expect this to top the chart next week based on this alone, but the market is absolutely starved for kids films so this is going to explode based on this coming weekend alone.
Having been around for a few weekends now, The Five-Year Engagement further proves its counter-programming credentials with another decent performance which has benefited from a relative lack of competition. I’m thinking the presence of male strippers on the big screen may hurt the film this coming weekend, but this has already outpaced its US performance in relative terms and should do perfectly well on the small screen too.
Faltering out the blocks a little, as it did in the US, is the 3D Katy Perry concert film which should hopefully prove once and for all that the 3D concert movie is not a viable sub-genre. Despite the Hannah Montana film going great guns a few years back, the likes of Glee, the Jonas Brothers and Justin Bieber haven’t really managed to set the charts on fire. Limited one-day only engagements of these things tend to do fairly well – I remember the JLS 3D film charting last year based on a single day of shows – but these things seem to be so flash in the pan that unless they come out a week after being announced, there doesn’t seem to be much demand. More worrying still is that Perry arguably has a bigger fanbase than many of these other acts. Expecting a quick exit for this one.
Men In Black 3 starts to slow down with a close to 50% drop, with the film losing some screens (likely 3D ones for stablemate Spidey) and with more broadly aimed material to come over the next few weeks, this will now start to say goodbye to the chart after a very solid run. Dropping heavily, though also losing nearly 100 sites, is Prometheus which with well over £20 million has done some great business, though I’d say it’s been fortunate that it hasn’t had all that much competition through the month of June. Pretty much the same for Snow White really; all three of these films having been mainstays and have ruled the last month.
Bol Bachchan makes a great debut from a limited release, with the release matching the usual widest Bollywood fare and scoring a decent result for it. I’m not going to pretend I have a great knowledge of this area of cinema, but it appeared to be marketed well, at least where I live in Cardiff, with posters around for it and the local cinemas giving it a decent push. Dropping pretty disastrously second week around is Friends with Kids, which will be thanking the general low grosses of everything bar Spider-Man so that it can stay in the conversation. Finishing out is a second week in the chart for Killer Joe, which actually gained screens and drops less than half, all in all a good result.
Opening wide this week is a bit of a mix, as Lionsgate brings us the well-marketed Magic Mike which should have a solid weekend including two days of previews starting today. StudioCanal take a chance on the potential downer-fest which is Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World, Fox re-release Chariots of Fire in a bid to make some pre-Olympics cash and Soda Pictures quietly put out Comes A Bright Day, which has had no marketing push whatsoever. FInally G2 Pictures take a chance on Tony Kaye’s latest Detachment. All told, it should be a relatively quiet week at the Box Office, as we prepare for the Bat.
