Last weekend three major releases opened against each other at the UK box office on paper each of them should of opened strongly at the box office but as they opened against each other all three suffered as they cannibalized themselves.
6m opening weekend was a fantastic opening and if you compare it to the 3.7m Oz the Great and Powerful re-imagining of Alice in Wonderland which opened with 10.5m in March 2010 and if you do Maleficent’s opening was disappointing. Opening on Wednesday having two days more than the other two new releases with half-term holidays and with the majority of the other films on release targeting a male audience Maleficent should of have the power to attract a bigger audience even with it receiving mixed reviews. that were embargoed until the day of release Unusually for a big Disney film it never had a UK premiere, instead having a promotional event in Kensington Palace three weeks before its release that Angelina Jolie attended which received a lot of media attention at the time. It’s opening was still far better than the other two openings.
4.9m that was Tom Cruise’s fourth biggest film opening in the UK behind Mission Impossible III £5.4m in 2006, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol £8.2m in 2011 and War of the Worlds in 2005 which took £8.6m. Edge of Tomorrow suffered opening against two other major releases causing all three to suffer as they ate into each others audience and box office.
Seth MacFarlane directed the massive comedy hit Ted which was released two years ago it opened with a massive £9.3m in he UK and expectations were high for his latest A Million Ways to Die in the West, the trailers were funny and were trailered with Universal’s Bad Neighbour’s which had opened successfully with £8.4m earlier in the month. The film had an in-built audience and would of likely had a strong opening but opening against two other major releases and the second weekend of X-Men Days of Future Past it failed to find its audience opening with £1.3m and fourth.
The UK market isn’t strong enough to cope with three wide major releases as seen many times before and most recently in early April when Rio 2, Noah and Divergent opened all three opened with similar amounts the three films like Maleficent, Edge of Tomorrow and A Million Ways to Die in the West on paper are aimed at different audiences but the audience is in reality the same. The releasing on these three films was caused by the World Cup starting on June 12th and the studios being scared to release their major films during it. Had Edge of Tomorrow opened this week against 22 Jump Street could it of opened better as 21 Jump Street opened well in the US in March 2012 but opened with only £1.56m in the UK we will never know.
When the World Cup ends in July it will cause another bottle-neck of releases with many films being released later in the month against each other which is only a prelude of what is to come with mega films opening against each other in the next two years. Opening this mega-films doesn’t do any good as it just shares the money between the films with neither earning the big bucks that they need to turn a profit.
