UK and US Box Office January 15th – 17th 2016

Top 5 Breakdown

1. The Revenant £5,192,151 – NE

2D took £4,999,936 with previews £5,115,937 – IMAX took £76,214

After receiving 8 BAFTA and 12 Oscar nominations and great reviews was always expected to open strongly. Having the UK premiere the same day the Oscar nominations were announced generated huge media coverage one of the strangest interviews was BBC news reporter comparing the overruns to Heaven’s Gate. (Heaven’s Gate budget was $11.6m going over by $30m in 1980 while The Revenant went from $95m to $135m).

Buzz has been building strongly since it was first screened in November when a blogger said the film wasn’t for girls; was also the silly story of Leo being raped by Judy the bear and screener was also downloaded illegally over 600k in the first couple of days.

For months it’s been seen as the role Leonardo DiCaprio will finally win his Best Actor Oscar and in a strange twist of fate he will likely be joined on the winning podium with Kate Winslet 18 years after Titanic. With Jack and Rose will be reunited at the Oscars this year as Oscar winners.

Last week Manchester United players including Matteo Darmian, Ashley Young, Juan Mata, Bryan Robson and Andy Cole Tweeting about how much they were looking forward to seeing The Revenant. The reason being apart from them all being massive Leo fans MEN Sport entered into a partnership with 20th Century Fox whose theme has been played before the start of their last three home games. The Revenant also featured heavily with the electronic advertising boards during their recent FA Cup match. I wonder if Manchester United will be Tweeting similarly about how much they are looking forward to seeing in a couple of weeks time Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip?

Its opening beats Leonardo DiCaprio’s The Wolf of Wall Street which opened the same weekend two years ago with £4.66m. His biggest opening was 2010’s Inception opening with £5.9m. Both are much more accessible films as The Revenant isn’t easy viewing.

With The Force Awakens holding on to most IMAX screens its performance is far more impressive. As it was limited to a few screens showing it in IMAX with Empire Leicester Square only showing it at 11pm each night and limited to one show in many other cinemas.

The Revenant will soon overtake last year’s Birdman to become director Alejandro González Iñárritu biggest film in the UK.

The Shiznit website created their annual real Oscar movie posters

Likely to hold strongly in the coming weeks The Wolf of Wall Street dropped only 23% in its second weekend but does face competition of The Big Short while Ride Along 2 and The Fifth Wave target difference audiences.

2. Star Wars: The Force Awakens – £3,116,385 – £113,935,182

(2D 66.1%) 2D £2,062,974 total £66,718,210 (58.5% of total)
(3D 16.9%) 3D took £528,476 total £33,851,318 (29.7% of total)
(IMAX 16.8%) IMAX 3D £524,934 total £13,022,358 (11.4% of total)

Dropping 47.6% in its fifth weekend due to double punch of The Revenant and Creed

The Force Awakens of course has done incredibly well but many experts were
predicting it would stay top for much longer than 4 weeks.

In comparison its fifth weekend Avatar in January 2010 was up 16% taking £5.25m going on to stay top for 8 weekends; strange coincidence Avatar’s ninth weekend (£3,316,855) it lost top spot to Valentine’s Day matches weekend box office of The Force Awakens.

The long playtime of Avatar was far more lucrative for exhibitors as Disney required over 60% of the box office taken in its opening 4 weeks dropping on weeks after exhibitors were happy to take it on those terms as were expecting it to hold similar to Avatar.

Having opening globally with $529m in three days going on to break box office records in the US and UK and many other countries was a bit surprising it took another 4 weeks to take $1billion from overseas. Has now taken $1.863bn worldwide with UK biggest market outside the US followed by Germany $100.1m, China $95m, France $80m and Japan $73m.

Before it was released almost all box office analysts predicted would beat Avatar to be the biggest film ever globally but now it looks like it might fall short to Titanic. It’s crazy to say when a film has taken $2bn globally but after the hype and huge opening anything less than beating Avatar must be seen as disappointing as Disney were disappointed Avengers Age of Ultron “only” took $1.4bn worldwide.

While Titanic and Avatar had a 30% US and 70% international box office split The Force Awakens was similar to the split of the prequels of 45% to 55% split. While it has broken records in Europe and US has underperformed in the Far East likely to take less than half what many expected it to take in China.

Much has been made of the spoilt brat behaviour of Kylo Ren in The Force Awakens with spoof Twitter accounts expressing his anger management issues. This weekend Saturday Night live took it one step future with Undercover Boss: Starkiller Base.

3. Creed £2,22,675 – NE

Deadline reported it had 333k admissions would see average ticket price of £6.93.

The buzz has been strong for months after getting excellent reviews and the media coverage this week has been very strong from Sylvester Stallone surprisingly missing as Best Supporting Actor at BAFTAs to his Golden Globe win to his Best Supporting Acting Oscar nomination to UK premiere attended by Stallone and Michael B Vance and the many interviews they did to promote.

But this was in the shadows of Leonardo DiCaprio and The Revenant as both were targeting similar audiences was knocked out in the first round by the opening of Rocky Balboa in 2007 with £3.63m. But while Rocky Balboa dropped heavily in its following weeks Creed is likely to hold far stronger with great reviews and word of mouth cinemagoers are finding its far more than just a boxing movie.

Its opening was 32% higher than last summer’s Southpaw opened with £1.63m holding strongly to take £7.82m and a massive 180% more than Clint Eastwood’s Oscar winner Million Dollar Baby.

To promote Creed Warner Bros hired a brass band play famous Rocky theme every time commuters climbed up the stairs at Chancery Lane Underground station early one morning in January.

Sylvester Stallone last film Grudge Match opened January 24th 2014 with £264,893. MGM and Warner Bros have already announced Creed 2 will be released in November 2017.

4. Daddy’s Home £1,495,892- total £14,071,785

Holding remarkably well down 33.8% in its 4 week of release no one could have possibly expected it would of down half as well.

For months it went below the radar with the Tina Fey Sisters getting much higher profile as the film to see after he Force Awakens but that sank without a trace in UK has been far more successful in US.

5. The Hateful Eight £1,105,494 – total £5,203,624

With The Revenant and Creed both opening targeting similar audience as The Hateful Eight it as always going to drop heavily 60.1% which was similar to its second weekend in the US when The Revenant expanded.

Holding similar to Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds dropped 65% in its second weekend August 2009 taking £1.27m and £6.63m but far from the staying power of his Django Unchained in January 2013 dropping only 14% in its second weekend taking £7.18m.

There has been mixed opinions over the 70mm at the Odeon Leicester Square presentation some taking issue over the focus which was a problem depending where you sat with film. The Hateful Eight has been booked in for a 4-week exclusive run. While its first week was very successfully doubtful it will likely be playing half empty for the remainder of its run. While Picturehouse Central was too small a venue for it to open with its 344 seater size now would now give a more intimate cinematic experience with performances more likely to sell out than the Odeon’s 1800 seater.

The loss of Cineworld, Picturehouse and Curzon has probably been minimal a bigger loss to their unlimited members than to box office. Was good for the industry that Entertainment held their ground as exhibitors normally weld far too much power which could more so if Vue are allow to buy Odeon later this year we would go back to the days of ABC and Odeon duopoly of cinemas in the 50s-80s when they owned two thirds of all UK screens Odeon’s chief booker Stan Fishman would be like the man from Delmonte deciding on whether a film will get a theatrical release.

Other box office news:

Room – Studiocanal – opened strongly in seventh taking £624,951 from 197 screens boosted by its BAFTA and Oscar nominations opening was 30% more than their fellow nominee Carol opened with £481,495 in November that has now taken £2.5m.

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This weekend’s top 10 box office took £15,591,252
Up 3.5% from last weekend £15,055,478 was up 12.8% from same weekend last year. (£13,820,762); when American Sniper opened with £2,528,401, Whiplash £572,739, Wild £524,721 and The Merry Widow Opera £460,519. Up 5.9% from 2014 when The Wolf of Wall Street opened.

The Revenant took 32.8% of top 10 box office
This weekend last year opened with Ex Machina £902,147, Mortdecai £482,155 and The Gambler £380,110

Complete UK Box office top 10 – January 22nd -24th 2016

US Box Office

1. Universal Pictures Ride Along 2 opened with $41.5m receiving B+ CinemaScore exactly two years after the first film opened with $48.6m received an A CinemaScore.

2. 20th Century Fox The Revenant held strongly with $39m boosted by strong word of mouth and receiving 12 Oscar nominations taking $83.2m to date.

3. Disney’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens $32.6m down 26.8% in fifth w/e $856.9m to date;

4. Paramount Pictures 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi opened with $19m.
41% of its box office came from the South compare to 33% for normal releases underperforming in the Northeast and West.