- Onward – £21,626 – £5,297,979
Onward topped the chart for two weeks before cinemas shut in March and were also the top-performing film from the 42 cinemas that reopened on Saturday 4th July, despite the film being released on video a month ago. There were buses with Onward, Trolls World Tour, and My Spy advertising the film for the last three months and similar posters on tube stations frozen in time since March.
1,095th biggest film in the UK between Argo and Tomb Raider 2 (close to Arthur and the Invisibles, Hoodwinked, The Angry Birds Movie 2 and Hercules) and 1,255th biggest inflation inflated film between A History of Violence and The Angry Birds Movie 2 (close to Muppet Treasure Island, Smurfs: The Lost Village, The Last Airbender, and Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul).
Onward opened in the shadow of the Coronavirus so the film had an underwhelming opening and dropped off heavily in its second weekend so impossible to make any comparisons to any other Pixar film.
Reviews for Onward were mixed but had cinemas stayed open with Easter holidays a few weeks later even with competition from Trolls World Tour and Peter Rabbit 2 it would have taken upwards of £15m more than The Good Dinosaur and Cars 3, instead Onward is the only Pixar film to not take over £10m the UK box office
23 Pixar films have taken over £690m at the box office since Toy Story in 1996 and over £890m inflation inflated.
As with 2015 and 2018 Disney is releasing two Pixar films this year with Soul opening in November.
Pixar has one untitled film for release in 2021, two untitled in 2022, and one untitled In 2023 all expected to be original films as after the release of Toy Story 4 last year Pixar said it would be their last sequel for some time.
- Trolls World Tour – £16,941 – £25,777
Week 13 on release since Trolls World Tour was released on VOD after cinemas shut two weeks before its UK release.
The first Trolls film was a big hit in the UK opening in October 2016 with £5,440,878 taking £23,364,692, it was helped having featuring Justin Timberlake’s song of the summer from the film Can’t stop the feeling, the video has been viewed over 1.22bn times on YouTube
Justin Timberlake’s song from the sequel The Other Side in comparison has had 20m views on YouTube.
Immediately after Universal Pictures announced the film was being released straight to VOD AMC and Regal cinemas banned all Universal Pictures films and any films that break the theatrical window, so it was surprising that the film was included within the package of films made available to exhibitors by distributors. Trolls World Tour did not play in Odeon cinemas.
Odeon and Cineworld banned Universal Pictures films from cinemas in the UK but after cinemas have been closed for the last three months, they will be desperate for the latest James Bond film No Time To Die opening in October.
The last 9 James Bond films since 1987’s The Living Daylights have taken over £400 at the UK box office with the last four Daniel Craig films (Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, Skyfall, and Spectre) taking over £300m between them. No Time To Die anticipated to take a similar box office to both Skyfall (£102,816,893) and Spectre (£95,183,468) despite all of his films apart from Casino Royale being very disappointing when compared to the likes of Bourne and Mission Impossible films.
- Bad Boys For Life – £16,070 – £16,094,329
Week 25 on release
359th biggest film in the UK between Ready Player One and Signs (close to Batman Begins, Ant-Man, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Kong: Skull Island) and 551st biggest inflation inflated between Ready Player One and The Rock (close to Trainspotting 2, Kingsman: The Secret Service, World War Z and Blade 2).
36th biggest Sony Pictures UK film between The Smurfs and Godzilla (close to Hitch, Blade Runner 2049, Django Unchained and Godzilla) and 58th biggest Sony Pictures UK film inflation inflated between Trainspotting 2 and My Best Friend’s Wedding (close to Venom, Jerry Maguire, The Panic Room and Bad Boys 2).
Interesting to see Bad Boys For Life took similar to Blade Runner 2049 another long gap sequel, so will be interesting to see how Top Gun: Maverick and Ghostbusters: Afterlife perform in December and next summer, they were both due for release this summer but were delayed due to Coronavirus.
It is also interesting that Bad Boys For Life performed similarly to Will Smith’s Hitch and inflation inflated box office of Bad Boys 2 released 17 years ago. Bad Boys For Life was well received by critics and held strongly when it was released in January.
After it took over a decade to get Bad Boys 3 made going through many directors Sony Pictures will surely want the fourth film made far sooner, it was announced in January the script was being written for a fourth film, despite the lines of “One last time” in the trailer.
Bad Boys For Life directors Adil & Bilall are next directing the even linger in development Beverly Hills Cop 4 starring Eddie Murphy which Paramount Pictures surprisingly sold to Netflix last November. Eddie Murphy also appeared in another long gap sequel later this year Coming 2 America, sequel to the 1988 comedy.
- The Greatest Showman – £14,499 – £49,351,203
Week 132 on release
The Greatest Showman has become the 42nd biggest film in the UK between Harry Potter & The Order Of The Phoenix and The Dark Knight and the 76th biggest inflation inflated between Minions and Frozen.
The Greatest Showman stayed in the top 10 for 18 weeks only Mamma Mia! in recent years has stayed in cinemas for longer. It became this generation’s Titanic as fans came back to see it again and again while the soundtrack was #1 for 21 non-consecutive weeks in the UK. Critics were quite snotty about the film but as Barnum is asked in the film “does it bother you that everything your selling is fake” his reply “do the smiles seem fake” The Greatest Showman does to quote the famous Ronseal advert What it says on the tin.
In its 18th weekend took £300,947 and £45,974,245 which was comparable with Titanic released 20 years earlier took £199,618 in its 18th weekend its inflation inflated box office would be a similar £374,000. While The Full Monty took £394,620 in its 18th weekend in the top 10 and £228,368 in its last weekend (21st week).
The Greatest Showman was released in December 2017 two weeks after it was announced Disney was to buy 20th Century Fox for $52.4bn, the price increased to $71.3bn in June 2018 after Comcast also made a bid for the studio. In March 2019, Disney acquired the studio and over the months that followed the studio has been incorporated within Disney and In January 2020 Disney renamed the studio 20th Century Studios.
The Greatest Showman was a huge success for 20th Century Fox taking over $435m worldwide, they had an even bigger success from Bohemian Rhapsody the year later taking over $900m worldwide and £55.2m in the UK but was the studio’s last successful release as all the films they have released since have underwhelmed.
The studio still has not released The New Mutant, which was planned to be the start of a new series of X-Men films but will now be the last Fox made film before being incorporated within the Marvel Extended Universe as Deadpool will also be in the years to come.
- 1917 – £12,744 – £43,788,801
Week 26 on release
Had become the 58th biggest film in the UK between The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe and Toy Story 2 and the 90th biggest inflation inflated between Inception and Slumdog Millionaire
Outside the top 5
Drive-in cinema
#6 Dirty Dancing (30th Anniversary) £11,925
#7 Grease (40th Anniversary) £11,925
#8 The Terminator (Re: 2015) £9,863
#9 Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope £7,475
#10 Fight Club £7,095
With tickets about £60 per car for two people, while also in regular cinemas outside the top 10 included
#16 Shawshank Redemption no BO data
#17 The Dark Knight £4,873 from 22 screens taking £49,079,093
#28 Bohemian Rhapsody £2,844 from 22 screens taking £55,160,111
#30 The Dark Knight Rises £2,348 from 15 screens taking £56,291,477
The majority of these films were playing at Odeon and Showcase cinemas with Odeon tickets £5.55 and Showcase £5 plus booking fees.
Rishi Sunak announced on Wednesday that VAT would be reduced in the hospitality sector from next Wednesday to January from 20% to 5%, it will be interesting to see if exhibitors pass that saving onto customers for most cinemas the saving will only be about £1 while it will be about £8 for the top price seats at the Odeon Leicester Square.
UK box office in detail
This weekend’s top 15 box office took £162,117 up 6,850.1% from last weekend
The weekend admissions 22,423
Top three took 41.9% (£54,637) of the top 10 (£130,433); Onward 16.6% (£21,626); Trolls World Tour 13% (£16,941); Bad Boys For Life 12.3% (£16,070);
2019 top three took (£21,320,144) of the top 10; Spider-Man: Far from Home (57.3%) (£14,148,624); Toy Story 4 (22.4%) (£5,543,052); Yesterday 6.6% (£1,628,468); 2019 top 10 took £24,700,057
2018: (£5,570,742); The First Purge (£1,778,157); The Beatles Yellow Submarine (50th Anniversary) (£163,155); Uncle Drew (£151,337); Whitney (£142,936); The More You Ignore Me (£8,420); #1 The First Purge £1,778,157 1st week 481 screens (31.9% of top 10)
2017: (£17,613,700); Spider-Man: Homecoming (£9,369,846); It Comes at Night (£226,688); Paw Patrol: Mission Big Screen (£42,460); #1 Spider-Man: Homecoming £9,369,846 1st week 616 screens (53.2% of top 10)
2016: (£16,304,545); The Legend of Tarzan (£3,570,350); Now You See Me 2 (£2,964,641); The Neon Demon (£126,996); Maggie’s Plan (£102,534); #1 The Secret Life Of Pets £3,624,751 3rd week 612 screens 24% drop (22.2% of the top 10)
2015; (£15,633,889); Terminator: Genisys (£3,793,617); Magic Mike XXL (£1,575,092); Amy (£523,192); Guillaume Tell – Royal Opera, London 2015 (£114,673); #1 Minions £6,238,498 2nd week 586 screens (39.9% of top 10)
2014: (£5,795,536); Tammy (£471,429); The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed out the Window and Disappeared (£102,570); Don Giovanni – Glyndebourne 2010 (£32,205); A Hard Day’s Night (Re: 2014) (£9,935); Vampire Academy (£111); #1 Mrs. Brown’s Boys d’Movie £2,188,761 2nd week 529 screens 49% drop (37.7% of top 10)
2013: (£10,613,251); Now You See Me (£2,898,997); The Internship (£1,248,431); The Bling Ring (£141,425); A Field in England (£21,399); Chasing Mavericks (£21,985); #1 Despicable Me 2 £3,996,837 2nd week 539 screens 73% drop (37.6% of top 10)
2012 (£14,221,408); The Amazing Spider-Man (£11,091,972); Katy Perry: Part of Me (£449,491); #1 The Amazing Spider-Man £11,091,972 1st week 552 screens (78% of top 10)
2011 (£10,318,687); The Guard (£473,878); The Tree of Life (£406,062); Trust (£2,069); #1 Transformers: Dark of the Moon £4,750,519 2nd week 522 screens 56% drop (46.1% of top 10)
010: (£11,090,024); Shrek Forever After (£8,955,554); Heartbreaker (£119,742); ); #1 Shrek Forever After £8,955,554 1st week 539 screens (80.7% of top 10)
2009; (£15,513,026); Ice Age III (£7,639,884); Public Enemies (£2,228,291); #1 Ice Age III £7,639,884 1st week 526 screens (49.2% of top 10)
2008; (£20,154,893); Hancock (£9,589,095); Kung Fu Panda (£6,069,679); The Mist (£157,394); #1 Hancock £9,589,095 1st week 450 screens (47.6% of top 10)
2007:( £12,207,040); Die Hard 4.0 (£5,004,916); Dead Silence (£22,580); #1 Shrek the Third £5,084,641 2nd week 538 screens 70% drop (41.6% of top 10)
2006; (£17,550,776); Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man’s Chest (£13,740,784); District 13 (£98,747); #1 Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man’s Chest £13,740,784 1st week 514 screens (78.3% of top 10)
2005 (£6,632,112); The Descent (£570,850); #1 War of the Worlds £4,219,120 2nd week 506 screens 51% drop (63.6% of top 10)
2004 (£19,891,077); Shrek 2 (£16,220,752); Godsend (£491,506); Highwaymen (£44,388); Club Dread (£32,265); #1 Shrek 2 £16,220,752 1st week 512 screens (81.5% of top 10)
2003 (£8,411,961); Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle (£3,273,078); Dark Blue (£70,049); #1 Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle £3,273,078 1st week 473 screens (38.9% of top 10)
2002 (£8,034,538); The Minority Report (£4,506,315); Spirit: Stallion of Cimarron (£719,681); #1 The Minority Report £4,506,315 1st week 426 screens (56.1% of top 10)
Other Box Office News
Om March 17th for the first time since September 3rd, 1939 after World War 2 was declared UK cinemas closed, but while in 1939 cinemas reopened within a week as the government realised that the nation needed the entertainment to keep up its spirits, this time they were closed for 3 months 18 days. The only other time cinemas closed was in 1918 after the Spanish Flu pandemic.
Since mid-May UK exhibitors had targeted July 4th as the day cinemas would reopen after being closed for over three months.
While Cineworld and Vue pushed back the reopening of cinemas for several weeks after Warner and Disney had delayed the releases of Tenet and Mulan to August Odeon, Showcase and Everyman still chose to reopen 42 cinemas between them. Keeping the July 4th reopening was symbolic as was the date the industry got behind ever since Boris Johnson announced the loosening of lockdown in May.
In June, the Film Distributors Association sent a list of over 450 films that would be available to exhibitors titled Relaunching Cinema: Content for Recovery.
The collection was split up into collections including Best of British, All-Time Classics, BAME Voices, “LGBTIQ+ Cinema and Women in Film.
Despite having such a wide choice of library films available cinema schedules for July 4th looked like they had been frozen in time since March. The only film that was playing across the majority of the cinemas that reopened was Trolls World Tour, the film Universal moved to VOD in April due to cinemas being closed. Which started a war of words between exhibitors as they banned all Universal films and all films that did not keep to the full theatrical window.
A recent survey polled 1,513 British film fans asking them which classic films they would like to see again on the big screen in cinemas; the top 10; Jaws; Star Wars; The Shining; Lord of the Rings trilogy; The Princess Bride; Alien; Raiders of the Lost Ark; Saving Private Ryan; Jurassic Park; The Exorcist.
When cinemas shut across the UK in March, was surprised the industry didn’t look to opening as many drive-in cinemas across the country as possible as they would be the cinemas most likely to be able to reopen much earlier than regular cinemas, A few drive-in cinemas have opened across the UK including at Goodwood by Secret Cinema showing over 30 classic films this month, while in the US Walmart are opening over 150 drive-in cinemas in their car parks during the summer.
On June 25th exhibitors announced their film scheduled for July 4th with 10th-anniversary screenings Inception for July 10th onwards and a Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back in 4K. Two films missing on their schedules were Tenet and Mulan. Later that day Warner announced Tenet would be delayed till August 12th and Disney followed shortly after delaying Mulan to August 21st. Disney also cancelled plans to release The Empire Strikes Back in 4K and instead will show it in 2K with the 4K for Disney+.
With Warner and Disney delaying Tenet and Mulan Vue and Cineworld pushed back the reopening of their cinemas till July 31st while Odeon and Everyman cinemas are opening their cinemas much slower. The Odeon Leicester Sq. was one of the cinemas due to reopen on July 13th with The Empire Strikes Back but there is no opening date on the website.
With Coronavirus daily infections in the now over 60,000 and with over 1m infections over the last 28 days there are doubts Tenet and Mulan will open next month.
In March studios delayed many summer releases to later in the year and to next year but Tenet and Mulan held their ground. This was due to Christopher Nolan wanting Tenet to be the first major release to open after the lockdown is over. This has created a $1bn+ game of chicken between Warner and Disney with each wanting the other to move first as Disney will not want to open Mulan before it has a confirmed China release date.
22 years ago Disney was forced to open the original animated film in China almost 9 months after the US due to the company being banned in China having released Martin Scorsese’s Kundun.
With the reimagination of Mulan having an Asian heavy cast and the original animated film was not a huge success for Disney the film was made primarily for China. China is hoping cinemas can reopen on October 1st, a national holiday over 9 months after they closed in China days before their new year.
At Screen International webinar exhibitors were hoping that US studios will open films ahead of the US if cinemas are not allowed to reopen in August, but this will generate piracy which is the reason why so many films now open day and date. As both Mulan and Tenet are likely to perform strongly in China, it is hard to see either Disney or Warner allowing either film to open across Europe without the US or China release date soon after.
While movie theatres have been closed for 3 months in the US this compares to over 6 months in China, studios will only release their biggest films in theatres when they feel audiences have returned and all the research has said it will be many months till majority feel that way.
The film industry should have been more aware of the issues pandemic might cause as like every natural disaster known to man there has been a film that almost mirrors the crisis and all people needed to do is watch films like Contagion and Outbreak to know what to expect and what to do and what could happen if countries don’t deal with it early.
The World Health Organization warned this week the COVID19 outbreak reports related to crowded indoor spaces have suggested the possibility of aerosol transmission combined with droplet transmission e.g. in restaurants or gyms.’ Can also land on objects or other surfaces and people can also be infected. Last week New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said that malls and movie theatres cannot reopen in the state until the air conditioning can filter put the COVID virus with a HEPA filter with a MERV rating of 11+.
There has been anger in the UK that while cinema staff is temperature checked and masks have been made mandatory neither are mandatory for cinemas. Cinemagoers should be temperature checked before they enter the cinema as children are checked before they enter schools, large companies have temperature scanners that scan people approaching the building and anyone who has a high temperature is not allowed to go inside.
Masks should also be mandatory whilst inside the cinema, AMC boss Adam Aron said that cinemagoers did not need to wear masks in cinemas in the US, but then said he would wear a mask when he went to the cinema.
This comment generated much negativity and a few hours later he said that masks were mandatory in cinemas. Masks could still be taken off once inside the auditorium so people can eat their popcorn and drink which I find completely crazy as once inside the cinema your surely at the highest risk. Even before lockdown cinemas had hygiene issues as 70% of men did not wash their hands when they went to the cinema. “The average person touches their face two or three thousand times a day… three to five times every minute. In between that, we are touching doorknobs, water fountains, and each other.”
UK Box Office Top 10
UK Box Office Predictions
While exhibitors have been given a library of 450 films and Warner have released Inception for its 10th anniversary and Disney also released The Empire Strikes Back in 2K there will be extremely limited new content released in cinemas until the end of the month.
Exhibitors are slowly reopening cinemas across the UK, 42 reopened on July 4th, and more reopened on July 10th, but at the moment the majority of cinemas will not reopen until July 31st, this is unless Warner and Disney delay Tenet and Mulan again over the coming weeks.
If Tenet and Mulan were to open next month they will likely take far less than they could have done as all of the research has shown it will take several months for the majority of cinemagoers to feel safe going back to the cinema, this is why it’s important for cinemas not to be seen doing the bare minimum. While Covidiots and Nolan fanatics will rush back to the cinema om August 12th cinema surely is for the many, not the few.
While I might seem to be overly negative just believe it is in exhibitors’ interest to show even the nerviest cinemagoer that they are putting their health and safety first. If customers can see exhibitors doing this the majority will return much quicker but the problem is exhibitors are always looking short-term.
If the cinema reopening was slowly and carefully I believe the last three months could be extraordinarily strong, the only problem will be that that the last three months are very crowded and if films do play for longer in cinemas films could cannibalize. Do think the theatrical window should be voided for the next few months and if films underperform them the distributor can release the film on VOD within a month. As seen by the box office this week of films all of them are available on VOD, video, or streaming but people still choose to see them in the cinema.
At the Everyman Hampstead and Barnet over 80 people paid over £15 to see Shawshank Redemption in cinemas despite being able to buy the film on Blu-ray for less than the price of the cinema ticket. If it is a film people want to see they will see it in the cinema and cinemagoers probably feel safer going to cinemas like Everyman rather than the massive multiplexes.