1. Backrooms – £4,281,936 – NE

Took £1.86m 43.45% Friday; £1.31m 30.6% Saturday; £1.11m 25.95% Sunday.

406th biggest opening between Big Hero 6 and Wall·E (close to Ghostbusters Afterlife, Venom: The Last Dance, The Flash and Mission: Impossible) and 599^th biggest inflated opening between Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire and Captain Phillips (close to Lethal Weapon 4, Ghost, Crocodile Dundee and The Day the Earth Stood Still).

20^th biggest opening over the last 52 weeks between Downton Abbey 3 and Scream 7 (close to 28 Years Later, The Housemaid, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple and Five Nights at Freddy’s 2).

10^th biggest opening horror between The Conjuring 2: The Enfield Case and The Nun (close to Nosferatu, 28 Years Later, Final Destination: Bloodlines and Paranormal Activity 2) and 24^th biggest inflated opening horror between The Exorcist 1998 (RE) and Saw III (close to Scream 3, The Others, What Lies Beneath and The Grudge).

Opened in 585 cinemas, the 352nd widest opening similar to Tomb Raider, Get Out, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip and Dad’s Army; the 763^rd 500+ cinema opening since 2002’s Monsters, Inc; the difference with Backrooms it was booked into multiple smaller screens in cinemas, as Star Wars kept all IMAX and majority of premium screens, so Backrooms had many sellout shows.

2026 has seen a lot of horror films released many of them as Backrooms received positive reviews but they didn’t connect with audiences including 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, The Bride!, Ready Or Not 2: Here I Come, Undertone, Lee Cronin’s The Mummy and Hokum targetting older horror fans, while Backrooms played to the similar under 35 audience as Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 (opened £3,256,484 and will probably play similar dropping up to 70% in its second weekend taking almost 80% of its total BO within 10 days (£6,743,068).

The biggest ever opening for A24 in the UK; A24 have had an incredible 2026 with the films they have released themselves and with partner Entertainment Films; Marty Supreme taking £15m and The Drama taking £10m+; A24’s previously biggest was last years Warfare taking £2.4m; what is key is the type of films they are making as seen with other independent studios they need to concentrate on what they do best as others like The Smashing Machine and Eternity disappointed. A24 have recently started production on a $100 m budget fantasy film, Elden Ring, set for release in 2028, but with only US and UK distribution, it will be almost fully financed by sales to foreign distributors.

As Miramax did 30 years ago, A24 over recent years has found its identity within the film industry, and one of the reasons given for seeing Backrooms in post surveys was that it was an A24 film. Independent studios over the decades have had success making certain genres of films, like New Line Cinema making horrors in the 80s and 90s, but then when they try to make other genres of films, they struggle.

Comparisons will surely be made with 1999’s The Blair Witch Project opened £5,875,318/£11,178,455 from 397 screens taking £14,971,525/£28,485,015; it dropped 61% in its second weekend (£2,290,106 and £7,202,110) as it had a similar marketing campaign but Blair Witch Project didn’t have the massive fanbase and was built up of months of build up opening in the UK four months after opening in the US and 10 months after it terrified Sundance Film Festival audiences who believed the events were real.

2009’s Paranormal Activity opened £3,593,762/£5,291,550 from 395 screens taking 36% of £9,935,165/£14,628,800

The Blair Witch Project’s opening weekend was almost 40% of its total BO, while Backrooms will be over 60% of its total BO.

Paramount are rebooting Paranormal Activity next year, and Lionsgate are rebooting The Blair Witch Project despite the 2000 sequel and the 2016 underwhelming, but then Paramount churned out many sequels to Paranormal Activity. The first sequels were profitable, but then they dropped off with the seventh Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin going to Paramount in 2021.

While Backrooms and Obsession have similarly small budgets, they are very different films playing to very different demographics. Backrooms has been very front-loaded in the US and the UK; the US was roughly $38m Friday, $25 m Saturday and $18m Sunday, and the UK was roughly £1.86m Friday, £1.31m Saturday and £1.1m Sunday. Going by those drops, Backrooms will drop about 70% in its second weekend. While Obsession initially played to a traditional horror audience, 60% male, audiences discovered it was a social horror like Send Help and The Invisible Woman about toxic masculinity. 

Low-budget films should be treated differently from tentpoles. There has been talk for a long time to have lower price points for sporting and music events, but this was rejected by UKCA in 2014, saying, “I think we need to be careful of ghettoising particular films.”

The last 6 months, since The Housemaid have shown audiences want to see a wider mix of films, which has helped grow the market. The problem is that for the next 6 months, it will be tentpole after tentpole, with all the films taking exactly what they are expected to take.

As was the case after the success of The Blair Witch Project, studios made dozens of cheap found footage films, and this will surely be replicated with studio executives scouring YouTube for other creators’ content they think could be another Backrooms. While there are many other content creators on YouTube, the challenge is to find another Kane Parsons or Markiplier.

Netflix warned in March that YouTube was its biggest competitor, generating a third more revenue last year than Netflix, $60bn compared to Netflix $45bn, with $15bn from premium content.

SOBER, a £7,000 feature shot in nine days in Leeds, was released for free on YouTube in 2025. It had no marketing budget, no PR, no ad spend. It was aimed specifically at Leeds audiences.

In four days, it received over 10,000 views and 12,000+ hours watched, with over 50% of viewing happening on living room TVs, not phones.

The filmmaker calculated that if every view translated to a £10 ticket, the film would have been #11 at the UK box office that weekend.

This is the new word-of-mouth model. Direct-to-audience, algorithm-driven, platform-native. SOBER didn’t need exhibitors. It didn’t need a 90-day window. It found its audience because YouTube’s recommendation engine did the work that cinema managers used to do.

• 2. Star Wars: The Mandalorian And Grogu £2,660,970 – £11,329,181

Down 49.7% in its second weekend

£799k 30.03% (-61.8% £2.1m) Fri; £903k 33.9% (-51.4% £1.86m) Sat; £959k 36.04% (-28.4% £1.34m) Sun

318^th biggest second weekend between Pitch Perfect 2 and Signs (close to Kong: Skull Island, Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Fantastic Beasts 3 and Mad Max: Fury Road) and 578^th biggest inflated second weekend between The Italian Job and Scary Movie (close to Home Alone, Look Who’s Talking, Aquaman and The Rock).

19^th biggest second weekend over the last 52 weeks between Marty Supreme and 28 Years Later (close to How To Train Your Dragon, The Conjuring: Last Rites, Hoppers and Downton Abbey 3).

Disney will say that The Mandalorian & Grogu held much stronger in the UK than in the US. But over a half-term weekend, with cooler weather than the previous week, it should have had a much lower second weekend drop.

The film skews young, which should have meant a very lucrative half-term week. Instead, it took just £3.34m from Monday to Thursday:

Bank Holiday Monday: £1.16m; Tuesday: £748k; Wednesday: £735k; Thursday: £704k.

Backrooms is a 15, which can’t be used as an excuse; if anything, it could have given Grogu an unexpected boost, with children buying tickets for the U-rated film and then sneaking into the 15-rated horror.

The Homework Problem

The Mandalorian & Grogu is the first Star Wars film released since the polarised Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker in 2019. After not releasing a Star Wars film for seven years, Disney will release two within twelve months, along with re-releasing the original Star Wars film in cinemas in February for its 50th anniversary (similar to 20th Century Fox’s 25th anniversary re-release in 1997 (opened to £3.77m/£7.4m inflated)

The problem is that The Mandalorian & Grogu have always felt less like a film than a two-hour marketing promotion to sell millions of Grogu toys. Last year, the live-action Lilo & Stitch took $1bn worldwide at the box office and sold many more times that in merchandising. As with Toy Story 5, these films are less about box office revenue than about merchandising and theme park rides.

It’s Disney’s sixth Star Wars film since 2015, and they have also made over ten Star Wars spin-off TV shows since 2019. This has led many to compare Disney’s Star Wars films to the MCU: you have to do hundreds of hours of homework before seeing the film, which alienates the many who just liked Star Wars films that were once accessible to new audiences.

Second Weekend Drops in Context

2018’s Solo: A Star Wars Story dropped 48%/35% without previews £3,147,338 and £13,907,406 63.6% of £19,432,391

The other Disney Star Wars films had a bigger drop, but they all had Thursday previews

2019’s The Rise of Skywalker dropped 55.4%; 2017’s The Last Jedi dropped 63.7%

2016’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story dropped 67.2%; 2015’s The Force Awakens dropped 70%

To put The Mandalorian and Grogu’s second weekend into perspective, it was almost half of the second weekends of the prequels released over 20 years ago that were released in 35mm no premium formats, inflating ticket prices, and it was just above 1997’s Star Wars Special Edition 25^th anniversary re-release.  

2005’s Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith dropped 62% £5,427,091/£9,229,511 and £24,304,352 62% of £39,188,065/£66,644,671

2002’s Star Wars Attack of the Clones dropped 47% £5,955,017/£11,118,808 and £21,436,645 57.6% of £37,235,880/£69,524,335

1999’s Star Wars: Phantom Menace dropped 32.2% £5,104,514/£9,711,914 and £20,571,053 36.3% of £56,596,112/£107,680,489

1997’s Star Wars Special Edition dropped £2,372,863/£4,669,934 and £8,814,684 53.4% of £16,512,718/ £32,498,003

The McDonald’s Test – A Happy Meal, Not a Film

As with The Devil Wears Prada 2, The Mandalorian & Grogu is an enjoyable but completely forgettable film. Many who have seen it say the same: they enjoyed it, but an hour later, they’re hungry again. It’s not a film. It’s a Happy Meal.

Disney used to put toys in McDonald’s Happy Meals. Now, the film is the toy. The movie is in the box. The Grogu doll is the prize. And you’re paying for both.

As with the other Disney Star Wars films, there is no substance. I always go back to South Park’s “memberberries.”

It’s the Disneyfication of acquired blockbusters. Disney has done this with Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Marvel, and Avatar. As Dr Ian Malcolm said:

“The problem with the scientific power that you’re using here, it didn’t require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done, and you took the next step. You didn’t earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don’t take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you even knew what you had, you patented it, and packaged it, and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox.”

The box office is the lunchbox. The Grogu doll is the toy. The film is the Happy Meal. And the audience is paying for the privilege of eating empty calories.

With schools returning this week and Grogu losing premium screens (IMAX/PLF) to Masters of the Universe, it will surely drop about 60% in its third weekend. It will be interesting to see if Disney opts to shorten its normal 90-day theatrical window and move it to Disney+ as quickly as possible. Surely, that would be best for everyone, because it’s where it should have always debuted.

The film was never a theatrical event. It was a two-hour commercial for a streaming service, designed to sell toys. The sooner it gets to its natural home, the sooner Disney can admit what everyone already knows: The Mandalorian & Grogu was always a TV show, stretched to feature length, and padded with a budget that could have funded a dozen original films.

The window is not a strategy. It’s a formality. And it’s time to end the charade. As Disney have far bigger things with Toy Story 5 opening in three weeks and Moana reimagination next month.

• 3. Michael £1,763,682 – £48,019,081

Down 1% in its sixth weekend

£558k 31.65% (+7.5% £519k) Fri; £602k 34.1% (-16.9% £724k) Sat; £603k 34.2% (+12.1% £538k) Sun

24^th biggest sixth weekend between Slumdog Millionaire and Moana 2 (close to The King’s Speech, No Time To Die, Mamma Mia 2 and Joker) and 60^th biggest inflated sixth weekend between Calendar Girls and Alvin and the Chipmunks 2 (close to The Fugitive, Fatal Attraction, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Forrest Gump).

Michael had a minimal sixth weekend drop after dropping 60% the previous weekend, the boost coming from Friday with half-term and Sunday with cooler weather. It also shows The Mandalorian and Grogu 50% second weekend drop was much bigger than it should have been after its soft opening; had the hot weather had an effect, as it must have done with Michael, it would have had under 30% drop. With two wide releases this weekend, Masters of the Universe and Scary Movie, Michael will likely have a far bigger drop in its seventh weekend.

Michael’s end credits start with “is story will continue”, that ending is surely more optimistic for fans, highlighting the death of Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody as he will live on in the sequel. The ending is open, optimistic, and sequel-baiting and why it’s seen fans dancing during the end credits as their icon lives on to be in the sequel.

Upcoming musician biopics include Sam Mendes’s four Beatles films in 2028; a Snoop Dogg biopic; and Ridley Scott has been developing a Bee Gees biopic for many years. It will be interesting to see how the four Beatles films will play. Some will be more popular than others, but four in a year surely too many even for the music fanatics, cinemagoers?

2^nd biggest film over the last 52 weeks between Avatar: Fire And Ash and Wicked Part 2 (close to The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, Zootropolis 2, Project Hail Mary and Jurassic World Rebirth).

61^st biggest between Shrek 2 and Jurassic Park (close to The Greatest Showman, Bridget Jones’s Baby, Wicked: For Good and Minions The Rise of Gru) and 146^th biggest inflated between Terminator 2: Judgement Day and Spider-Man 2 (close to Mary Poppins Returns, Toy Story, Babe and Crocodile Dundee II).

Michael Jackson songs have climbed into the singles chart this week: Billie Jean #3; Beat It #10; Human Nature #11; I Want You Back Jackson 5 #31; The Essentials #2; Thriller #5; Bad #8; Off The Wall #45; Dangerous #91; soundtrack album #1 on soundtrack album chart.

• 4. Obsession – £1,565,341 – £6,834,514

Up 21.8% in its third weekend.

£502k 32.4% (+26.4% £401k) Fri; £517k 33.04% (+9.52% £472k) Sat; £541k 34.57% (+31.63% £411k) Sun

369^th biggest third weekend between Hotel Transylvania 3: A Monster Vacation and Spider-Man 2 (close to Venom, American Pie, Clash Of The Titans and Van Helsing) and 626^th biggest inflated third weekend between The Second-Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Saw (close to Yes Man, The Panic Room, Final Destination and Closer)

In a few months, most of the films released in the first five months of the year will be all but forgotten – apart from Michael and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. But the real drivers of the box office increase from last year are films like Obsession and Backrooms. The tentpoles (except for The Mandalorian & Grogu) will play to their expected audiences and take their expected box office. They don’t attract new audiences. Original films have done that since The Housemaid.

As with Michael, it’s hard to find comparable films with Obsession, not because there haven’t been films that performed like both, but because they weren’t of similar genres. Both played beyond their original audiences.

Obsession’s third weekend was similar to:

2024’s It Ends With Us dropped 34.8% £1,847,480 and £15,860,073 73.8% of £21.5m

2020’s Parasite dropped 31.8% £1,722,236 and £8,397,639 70.1% of £11,971,951

1998’s There’s Something About Mary dropped 13.9% £1,744,963/£3,468,276 and £8,530,595 53.1% of £16,063,108/£31,926,922

2005’s Hitch dropped 25.9% £1,660,358 and £11,165,657 64.5% of £17,306,574/£29,432,199

2000’s What Women Want dropped 34.8% £1,637,408/£3,168,029 and £10,595,788 62% of £17,091,251/£33,067,855

Those last two films, Hitch and What Women Want, are interesting case studies. They were seen as sweet rom-coms 20 years ago. Today, they can be viewed in a different light.

Hitch is about a man who helps other men manipulate women into falling in love with them.

What Women Want is about a man who can hear what women are thinking – and he uses that knowledge to manipulate them.

25 years ago, they seemed sweet. Now, they feel twisted. (And What Women Want has the added discomfort of Mel Gibson in the lead.)

Previously, I compared Obsession with other social horrors – Get Out, The Invisible Man, and Send Help. The difference is that audiences knew those films were social horrors before they were released. Obsession was marketed as a horror from Blumhouse.

But it’s horror that plays to audiences who don’t normally like horror. It has a fantasy element (the monkey’s paw), but it’s grounded in a very human, very real horror that women deal with daily. As a man, I can never fully understand how my actions might be seen badly by women. Obsession plays on that “nice guy” persona.

It reminded me of Bournemouth FC’s excellent safety video from two years ago, which showed the difference between a man walking home at night from a football game and a woman doing the same. Things men do without thinking, that seem to us like just being a “nice guy”, can be seen very differently by a woman who doesn’t know us.

In the original Devil Wears Prada, Andy is told that a million girls would kill for her job. Obsession literalises that metaphor. It takes the casual hyperbole of office politics and turns it into a supernatural nightmare. The girl who would kill for Andy’s job doesn’t just want it; she wants Andy’s life, her partner, her existence. And she gets it. That’s the horror.

Obsession could also be seen as a darker version of the 2000s Bedazzled. In that film, Elliot Richards sells his soul to the Devil for seven wishes, hoping to win the affection of his crush, Alison Gardner. Each wish is twisted, revealing the shallowness of his desires. But Elliot eventually learns that he cannot force Alison to love him. In his final wish, he hopes she has a happy life, with or without him. It’s a rare moment of genuine selflessness in a genre built on selfish wishes.

Of course, there was a more innocent culture 30 years ago; the darker elements of this behaviour weren’t realised. It’s like looking back at films from the 70s and 80s, the way people are portrayed wouldn’t be allowed today. The film industry ignored what Harvey Weinstein was doing for decades. It was only after his power slipped that the industry admitted the dark open secret it had known for decades.

That’s the key to Obsession. The “nice guy” Bear has the power. He has the wish. He has the control. He is the architect of the nightmare.

Obsession takes these hidden dynamics and makes them explicit. There is no whimsy, no time travel, no secret identity played for laughs. Just the raw, terrifying reality of a man who wants to control the woman he claims to love.

Obsession joins a long tradition of “be careful what you wish for” stories: The Monkey’s Paw, Bedazzled, Bruce Almighty, Liar Liar, The Craft, Wishmaster. To be given the chance to have what you dreamed about is the ultimate fantasy. But as The Monkey’s Paw taught us a century ago, and Obsession reminds us today, the nightmare is usually hiding inside the wish. (The exception, of course, is Aladdin, though even he had to deal with Jafar.)

Most of these stories are told from the male perspective. Taylor Swift’s short film for her song “All Too Well” sees it from the woman’s perspective. It looks very different from the other side.

Obsession also plays strongly to the female audience who have recently enjoyed The Housemaid, Send Help, Wuthering Heights and The Drama. Those films feature women stuck in toxic situations, finding ways to escape. But Obsession goes a step further: it shows the man as the architect of his own nightmare, wishing for love but unable to receive it because he cannot be vulnerable.

That’s the horror. And that’s why it’s holding.

• 5. The Devil Wears Prada 2 £875,712 – £32,144,914

Down 23.8% in its fifth weekend

£277k 31.6% (-26.7% £378k) Fri; £314k 35.89% (-27.31% £432k) Sat; £284k 32.46% (-15.98% £338k) Sun

240^th biggest fifth weekend between Casper and American Pie (close to Kingsman: The Golden Circle, The Mask, Avengers Assemble and American Beauty) and 448^th biggest inflated fifth weekend between Father of the Bride and Sonic The Hedgehog 3 (close to Maleficent, My Best Friend’s Wedding, Sleepy Hollow and While You Were Sleeping).

8^th biggest film over the last 52 weeks between Jurassic World Rebirth and The Housemaid (close to Zootropolis 2, Project Hail Mary, Wuthering Heights and The Fantastic Four).

150^th biggest between iT and The Housemaid (close to The Hangover Part II, Gravity, Slumdog Millionaire and Notting Hill) and 308^th biggest inflated between Star Wars Special Edition and The Housemaid (close to A Star Is Born, La La Land, A Fish Called Wanda, and Never Say Never Again).

While the original stays long in the memory, with quotable lines, the sequel might be a fun film to watch, but it’s a sugar rush. A Big Mac. Enjoyable in the moment, 20 minutes later, hungry again, they were just empty calories, making you crave the original film again. To quote Mark Kermode, “I’m not angry, but disappointed”.

Fifth weekends

2006’s The Devil Wears Prada dropped 48.9% £460,062/£756,693 and £12,717,312 92.9% of £13,681,185/£22,502,319

2008’s Sex and the City dropped 51.2% £591,136/£910,577 and £24,697,910 94.1% of £26,232,557/£40,408,227

While The Devil Wears Prada 2 opened much bigger than the original film, it is having similar legs as 2025’s Wicked Back For Good and Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy.

Its fifth weekend was similar to 2024’s It Ends With Us, which dropped 41.4% £668,902 and £20,110,598, 93.5% of £21.5m, despite opening almost double that of It Ends With Us.

So, despite all the hype, The Devil Wears Prada 2 is doing exactly as it was expected to take, as all other legacy sequels, as Miranda Priestly would say, “that’s all”. As with all legacy sequels, this is the difference, while in 2006 the original Devil Wears Prada was a surprise and has beloved audiences ever since, legacy sequels feel like wearing your favourite sweater 20 years later, as Andy does in the end scene.

As with Sex and the City, younger audiences grew up with many similar TV shows, from The Bold Type, Younger and Unreal. Why the Sex and the City spinoff show, And Just Like That, didn’t connect with fans who didn’t grow up with the Sex and the City TV show.

Also opened

• Tuner opened £361,457 #7 from 183 screens.

Including £81,794 from previews

Had a limited wide opening, likely planned to build word of mouth and expand further in its second weekend, after its soft opening its instead had showtimes reduced.

This, of course, is the massive gamble independent distributors have with their films that won’t immediately find their audience. Do they go as wide as possible, as Black Bear did the same weekend last year with The Salt Path, 518 cinemas, and hope that positive reviews and media attention will see the film open strongly, as The Salt Path opened £1,479,569. Or go limited wide, and the film fails to find an audience, and the expansion never happens.

Tuner had its world premiere at last year’s Telluride Film Festival, receiving positive reviews, and was the surprise film at last year’s London Film Festival. So why was its UK release date 8 months later, as it’s lost all of the momentum and buzz it received between September and October after Telluride, Toronto and London Film Festival screenings.

Tuner is Dustin Hoffman’s first major screen role since 2010’s Little Fockers, so probably one of his last leading film roles. Leo Woodall starred recently in Netflix’s Vladimir, but is best known for playing Roxster in Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy and Jack in The White Lotus TV series.

Exhibitors spent years fighting for 90-day theatrical windows. They claimed films needed time to find audiences. But look at Tuner. Positive reviews. Festival buzz. Dustin Hoffman’s return. A planned expansion. One soft opening weekend, and the expansion is cancelled, screens are cut, and the film is quietly buried by Friday of week two. Finding Emily dropped 71% in its second weekend (£61,235 #13 271 screens taking £504,098), not because audiences rejected it, but because the screens were already gone. Power Ballad will suffer the same fate.

Finding Emily was compared by critics to 2023’s Rye Lane, having a similar fate at the box office, receiving rave reviews opening wide in 369 screens, taking £258,997, #7 down 42% in its second weekend, losing over 100 screens, taking £150,824.

Exhibitors want the guarantee of a 90-day window, but they refuse to honour it for any film that doesn’t open like a Marvel movie. They want their cake, the leverage against streamers, and to eat it too, the freedom to dump underperformers instantly. The window isn’t for the films. It’s for the exhibitors’ bargaining position. And the Tuners of this world are paying the price.

This isn’t just about Tuner, as it was the case with Power Ballad, Finding Emily last weekend and dozens more throughout the year. Will next year be the 10^th anniversary of The Greatest Showman and the 30^th anniversary of The Full Monty? Could a word-of-mouth hit like those two ever happen in the UK again? It’s about a system that has lost the ability to cultivate an audience. Every film is now judged on its opening weekend as if it were a tentpole. There is no middle ground. There is no patience. There is only “hit” or “dump.”

The 90-day window was supposed to protect theatrical exhibition. Instead, it’s become a weapon – held over streamers, but never extended to the films that actually need it.

• Power Ballad opened £203,650 #9 from 518 screens

Had its world premiere at the Dublin Film Festival in March and had its US premiere at SXSW, receiving positive reviews.

John Carney previously directed Once in 2007 and followed it with 2013’s Begin Again, 2016’s Sing Street and 2023’s Flora and Son (released straight to Apple TV). All of his films have received positive reviews, but he struggled to find a wide audience.

Power Ballard trailers have been well-received and were trailed before Michael, starring Paul Rudd and Nick Jonas.

2016’s Sing Street performed strongly in Ireland, taking £860k before UK expansion, opening with  £126,269 from 85 screens

2014’s Begin Again opened £454,139

2007’s Once took £681k on limited release having a budget of £100k

• Legally Blonde (25th Anniversary 4K Restoration)

Opened £30,439 #23 from 243 screens.

As with other re-releases from Park Circus, it had a couple of shows over the weekend.

The film has been beloved by audiences for 25 years. It originally opened to £1.45m/£2.81m inflated taking £6.02m/£11.6m

Legally Blonde is the ultimate pop-culture celebration of underestimated women. It was similar to Clueless.

25 years after Legally Blonde and 30 years after Clueless, both films are still quoted, still referenced, still taught in film studies courses about gender and representation. That’s not because they were hits. It’s because they were right.

And they remain right. The blonde stereotype hasn’t disappeared. The “dumb rich girl” trope is still alive. That’s why the films endure, because the battle they fought is still being fought.

But they also endure because they’re funny. That’s the secret. You can’t change minds by lecturing. You change minds by making the underestimator look ridiculous. Legally Blonde and Clueless do that better than almost any films before or since.

Studios ever since have tried to replicate them with mixed success; Legally Blonde 2 failed to match up to the original film, but since there has been Legally Blonde the musical and after years of developing a third film, a prequel TV series will launch next month on Prime Video called Elle. It will feature James Van Der Beek in his final screen role before he died.

•             My Mother’s Wedding – opened £37,574 #20 from 150 screens

Female-led British drama starring Scarlett Johansson, Sienna Miller, Emily Beecham, Freida Pinto and Kristin Scott Thomas, and directed by Kristin Scott Thomas (her directorial debut); premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in 2023, receiving mixed reviews, and it was released in the US in August 2025 (opened $433k, taking $911k and $1.1m worldwide.

It was originally titled North Star; it’s the third time Scarlett Johansson and Kristin Scott Thomas have played mother and daughter in a film after 1998’s The Horse Whisperer and 2008’s The Other Boleyn Girl.

——————–

BO is currently up 10% from 2025.

The weekend’s top 10 box office took £12,793,781, up 9.6% from last weekend’s £11,666,871: 1,485,921 admissions, up 9.6% from 1,355,037 admissions.

23^rd biggest weekend of the last 52 weeks between 11 July 2025 #1 Superman £6,992,902 (53.61%) and 15 May 2026 #1 Micheal £4,432,922 (34.86%)

79^th biggest since cinemas reopened out of 289 weeks between 22 December 2023 #1 Wonka £7,214,019 (55.58%) and 01 April 2022 #1 Sonic The Hedgehog 2 £4,986,334 (39.18%)

409^th biggest top 10 of the last 25 years (out of 1,260) between 30 April 2010 #1 Iron Man 2 £7,664,732 (59.69%) and 24 August 2018 #1 Disney’s Christopher Robin £2,138,824 (16.72%) and 802^nd biggest inflated between 14 September 2007 #1 Run, Fat Boy, Run £1,543,836 (20.57%) and 19 April 2002 #1 Bend It Like Beckham £1,721,146 (27.01%)

The top 3 took £8,706,588 (68%) of the top 10; Backrooms 33.47% (£4,281,936); Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu 20.8% (£2,660,970); Micheal 13.79% (£1,763,682).

651^st biggest percentage share #1 (33.47%) between 13 January 2023 #1 Avatar: The Way of Water £4,172,161 (33.47%) and 06 February 2004 #1 School of Rock £2,742,356 (33.38%)

730^th biggest admissions (497,321) between 10 August 2012 #1 Ted £3,174,766 (498,393) and 21 February 2003 #1 The Ring £2,200,084 (495,514)

Down 24.68% from 2025; (£16,985,780); Karate Kid: Legends (£2,592,601); The Salt Path (£1,479,569); Peppa Meets The Baby Cinema Experience (£1,065,856); Doctor Who – The Two Episode Finale (Wish World & The Reality War) (£381,725); The Ballad Of Wallis Island (£142,542); #1 Lilo & Stitch £6,139,573 2nd week down 36% 688 screens (36.15% of top 10)

Up 92.56% from 2024; (£6,644,039); Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban (20th Anniversary) (£394,066); Haikyu!!: The Dumpster Battle (£270,095); Sting (£231,113); The Crow (30th Anniversary) (£85,119); Young Woman And The Sea (£64,138); The Beast (£58,826); #1 IF £1,570,568 2nd week split over 3 weeks (23.64%)

Down 22.75% from 2023; (£16,560,628); Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse (£9,159,823); The Boogeyman (£492,071); SUGA – Agust D TOUR ‘D-DAY’ In JAPAN: LIVE VIEWING (£119,465); Die Zauberflote – Met Opera 2023 (£104,669); Reality (£62,987); The Machine (£36,377); Thelma & Louise (4K Restoration) (£5,977); #1 Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse £9,159,823 1st week 676 screens (55.31%)

Down 9.97% from 2022 (£14,210,581); Men (£519,907); Hamlet – Met Opera 2022 (£27,446); Dashcam (£9,060); #1 Top Gun: Maverick £10,325,500 756 screens 2nd week 35% drop (8% without previews) (72.7% of top 10)

Up 47.99% from 2021 from (£7,692,672); The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (£2,708,455); Cruella (£1,453,635); Demon Slayer: Mugen Train (£693,081); First Cow (£21,862); #1 The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It £2,708,455 1st week 473 screens (35.21%)

2020 Lockdown

Down 24.2% from 2019; (£16,880,406); Godzilla: King of the Monsters (£3,507,717); Ma (£509,624); Thunder Road (£44,065); #1 Aladdin 2nd week £4,888,931 31% drop 645 screens (28.96% of top 10)

Up 30.5% from 2018: (£9,802,656); Book Club (£720,858); My Friend Dahmer (£37,940); #1 Solo: A Star Wars Story £3,147,338 684 screens 48% drop 2nd week (32.1% of top 10)

Down 20.6% from 2017: (£16,108,699); Wonder Woman (£6,179,616); Baywatch (£4,631,244); My Life as a Courgette (£55,566); Dough (£51,426); #1 Wonder Woman £6,179,616 1st week 599 screens (38.3% of top 10)

Down 11.9% from 2016: (£14,572,147); Warcraft: The Beginning (£3,623,725); Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (£3,495,445); Me Before You (£1,790,657); The Nice Guys (£1,004,622); Race (£39,990); #1 Warcraft: The Beginning £3,623,725 500 screens 1st week (24.8% of top 10)

Up 3.1% from 2015; (£12,383,288); San Andreas (£4,628,394); Man Up (£528,748); Danny Collins (£225,308); The Connection (£82,486); #1 San Andreas £4,628,394 505 screens 1st week (37.3% of top 10)

Down 19.2% from 2014: (£15,825,863); Maleficent (£6,590,071); Edge of Tomorrow (£1,886,096); A Million Ways to Die in the West (£1,240,465); Jimmy’s Hall (£131,703); Heaven is for Real (£7,762); #1 Maleficent £6,590,071 486 screens 1st week (41.6% of top 10)

Up 5.3% from 2013: (£12,145,608); The Purge (£1,019,877); The Big Wedding (£595,956); Byzantium (£114,339); Populaire (£106,192); #1 The Hangover Part III £2,917,887 498 screens 51% drop 2nd week (24.1% of top 10)

Down 21.5% from 2012 (£16,285,480); Prometheus (£6,236,580); Snow White and the Huntsman (£3,589,027); Top Cat – The Movie (£457,287); The Angels’ Share (£256,446); LOL (£114,545); #1 Prometheus £6,236,580 1st week 514 screens (38.2% of top 10)

Down 4.3% from 2011; (£13,361,869); X-Men: First Class (£5,438,386); Eyes Wide Open 3D (£463,914); Senna (£375,173); Last Night (£51,245); Prom (£34,885); Screwed (£9,297); #1 X-Men: First Class £5,438,386 1st week 507 screens (40.7% of top 10)

Up 68.3% from 2010: (£7,601,859); Death at a Funeral (£696,280); 4.3.2.1 (£433,218); She’s Out of My League (£400,554); The Killer Inside Me (£124,006); #1 Sex and the City 2 £2,473,043 2nd week 521 screens 60% drop (32.5% of top 10)

Up 76.9% from 2009; (£7,228,664); Drag Me to Hell (£1,907,731); 12 Rounds (£326,804); Obsessed (£154,344); Jonas Brothers 3D Concert Experience (£117,060); Fireflies in the Garden (£20,828); #1 Night at the Museum 2 £2,054,769 520 screens 51% drop 2nd week (28.4% of top 10)

Down 22.1% from 2008; (£16,421,392); Sex and the City (£8,767,265); Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay (£265,346); Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins (£40,380); #1 Sex and the City £8,767,265 460 screens 1st weeks (53.4% of top 10)

Up 55.3% from 2007: (£8,174,672); Wedding Daze (£803,471); Paradise Lost (£406,822); The Hitcher (£217,973); Flyboys (£38,531); #1 Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End £5,381,920 2nd week 550 screens 60% drop (65.8% of top 10)

Up 67.7% from 2006; (£7,629,707); Poseidon (£1,349,080); United 93 (£616,882); Wah-Wah (£46,159); Benchwarmers (£40,366); #1 X-Men: The Last Stand £2,310,683 2nd week 448 screens 67% drop (30.3% of top 10)

Up 42.7% from 2005: (£8,963,845); Sin City (£2,452,299); The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse (£555,996); #1 Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith £3,313,328 3rd week 490 screens 39% drop (36.9% of top 10)

Up 10.7% from 2004 (£11,556,263); The Day After Tomorrow (£7,321,633); #1 The Day After Tomorrow £7,321,633 1st 429 screens (63.3% of top 10)

Up 98.4% from 2003 (£6,447,499); Bringing Down the House (£1,133,139); Ripley’s Game (£244,457); #1 The Matrix Reloaded £3,783,905 2nd week 481 screens 69% drop (58.6% of top 10)

Up 112.9% from 2002 (£6,007,556); 40 Days and 40 Nights (£1,027,578); The Time Machine (£808,389); Snow Dogs (£331,432); #1 Star Wars Ep II – Attack of the Clones £2,442,698 471 screens 3rd week 40.6% drop (61.9% of top 10)

2025 Next week: (£11,682,908); Ballerina (£1,418,816); Clown In A Cornfield (£350,198); Dangerous Animals (£132,291); Showgirls (30th Anniversary) (£2,383); #1 Lilo & Stitch £3,528,384 3^rd week 43% drop 668 screens (30.20% of top 10)

UK Box Office News

May BO was £104.2m, up 23.95% from 2025 but still 1.4% down from 2019, while admissions were still 15% down from 2019.

UK BO Jan- May £418.3m; 10.2% up from 2025 but still 9.2% down from 2025; admissions were 50.7m up 7% from 2025 but 21.7% down from 2019 (64.8m)

Despite much negativity being written about Everyman Cinemas they are had the biggest growth this year ahead of Vue and Odeon.

The problem is that the industry focuses on the wrong stats to show success, as of course, the box office will increase as audiences are paying much more to go to the cinema than they did in 2019. While the industry average might be £8.25, most people who went to the cinema over the weekend are paying a third more, and many are going to see IMAX/PLF three times as much.

In 2022, UKCA said admissions would top 200m within 5-10 years. While BO will return to pre-pandemic levels this year, it will surely be much longer than 10 years for admissions to top 200m. The industry has been talking about 200m admissions since the 80s. Back then, the longer-term aim was over 350m, discussed at the Screen International conference in the early 90s.

US Box Office News

May 2026 was the first billion-dollar May since 2019, but adjusted for inflation, May 1996’s $453m is worth $1.3bn today. May 2002’s $933m is worth over $2bn. May 2026’s $1.07bn is actually the lowest May since 2014 in real terms, and the lowest in admissions since the 1990s. The industry has lowered the bar, cheered the number, and hoped no one would do the math.

May 2002 sold 160.9 million tickets.

May 2026 sold 85.6 million tickets.

That’s a 47% drop in admissions from 2002, and a 27% drop from 2019.

The only reason May 2026 is a “billion-dollar month” is that ticket prices are $12.49 instead of $9.16 in 2019 and $5.80 in 2002.

The billion-dollar month was a massive achievement a decade ago, as a film taking $100m at the US box office was over 30 years ago, and a film taking $1bn worldwide 25 years ago, to paraphrase Sean Parker, “One billion dollars isn’t cool anymore, $2bn is”.

US Box Office

• Backrooms – A24

Opened $81m; received positive reviews (88% Rotten Tomatoes) and a B- CinemaScore.

Took $9m from Thursday previews; Scream 7 $7.8m; Five Nights at Freddy’s $10.3m; Halloween $7.7m; 28 Years Later $5.8m; Iron Lung $3.5m; Longlegs $3m.

Ahead of opening, presales were similar to Scream 7, opening $63.6m with some predicting up to $50m opening, having A24’s biggest ever opening (Civil War $25.5m).

Took 17% from PLF screens; Grogu kept IMAX screens.

Audience breakdown under 35, 86%; under 25, 67%; under 21, 44%; 60% male.

EntTelligence estimated 5.8m admissions, 43% of weekend admissions; 36% saw it after 8 pm; average price $13.56 compared to Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu‘s $16.27.

Ahead of opening a month ago, Backrooms was looking at opening with $40m+, but over the weeks, since predictions have been going up and up, as with Markiplier’s Iron Lung in January, it was impossible to tell if the film would play to a wider audience than its existing fanbase and how it would play to those who hadn’t seen it before. The film is accessible to new audiences as they see the characters being as clueless about the backrooms as those who haven’t seen the original content, but it ends with more questions than answers why critics have liked it more than cinemagoers.

It was originally launched on 4chan and spread on Reddit about a man lost in myriad banal rooms filled with nightmarish people morphing into Roblox and Minecraft games. It was transformed into a found-footage YouTube series created via Blender and Unreal Engine with over 190 million views. Making a fanatical fanbase, the question is, will it play beyond the existing fanbase, and will that be a more polarised response, making it very front-loaded?

A24 announced two sequels for Backrooms, saying they were always planned in 2022. Kane Parsons said that the first film was the first step in the narrative of a much larger story he couldn’t finish in a single film. He said he went as far as he could with the YouTube series. “A series would be my dream scenario, personally,” … “I think that’s the most practical way to narratively get what you want. But obviously, a series is a whole thing. So, it won’t be immediate, it won’t be ‘snap your fingers, and it’s here.’ And in general, the series, in my mind, is not determined by its genre label. The way I think of it is definitely a lot more of an interpersonal sort of drama built on top of a supernatural techno-thriller. That’s more the space I feel comfortable in.”

Rival studio executives will look at Backrooms (cost: $10m, gross: $80m+) and Obsession (cost: $12m, gross: $85m+) and say: “Get me ten more of these.” They will assign junior producers to trawl Reddit for the next creepypasta. They will hire young directors who have watched too many YouTube breakdowns. They will rush scripts into production with six-week shoots and pray for a TikTok miracle.

Some will break even. A few will hit. Most will vanish into streaming catalogues, unwatched and unloved. The audience will learn to be sceptical of “internet horror” the same way they learned to be sceptical of “found footage” after 2005.

Some analysts will point to Backrooms and Obsession as proof that the market has changed. They’re not wrong, but they’re not entirely right, either. These were unique films that caught specific cultural moments. There will be others like them. But the problem is what comes next. The studios will now seek them out. They will chase the formula. And there will be a lot of crap – just as there was after The Blair Witch Project (dozens of awful found footage films) and after Cloverfield (shaky-cam monster movies nobody asked for).

The cycle is predictable. The only question is whether anyone learns from it. They won’t, as William Goldman famously said, “Not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for a certainty what’s going to work. Every time out it’s a guess and, if you’re lucky, an educated one”

Opened $36.5m internationally from 30 territories and $118 worldwide; UK $5.6m; Australia $4.4m; South Korea $2.7m; Italy $2m.

• Obsession – Focus Features

Up 14% in its third weekend, $27.39m and $105.75m

It was the first film since 1982 (E.T.: The Extraterrestrial) to increase in its second and third weekend away from Christmas.

The hold Obsession has had over the last two weeks is something that hasn’t happened for many years, a word-of-mouth hit that builds its audience week by week, but surely has similarities with 2017’s Get Out and last year’s Weapons, as it’s a horror for people who normally don’t see horrors. Obsession’s opening weekend was 60% male, but as with Send Help, it attracted female audiences; the only difference was that they came out to see it in its second and third weekends.

Many analysts have put Backrooms together with

Obsession was originally scheduled to be released on PVOD on June 2nd, just 17 days after its theatrical debut. But Universal Pictures has opted to give it a 45-day theatrical window, recognising that the film has genuine legs and that cutting them off early would be leaving money on the table.

This should be a template for the industry. Theatrical windows should be performance-dependent, not fixed by corporate decree. A film that is holding well should stay in cinemas. A film that is collapsing should move to PVOD quickly.

A flexible window could be anything from 17 days to 120 days, depending entirely on how the film is performing week by week. That would mean:

Audiences would always have access; there would never be that frustrating gap where a film has left cinemas but isn’t yet available legally to rent or buy.

Exhibitors would be rewarded for nurturing hits, not just opening them.

Studios would maximise revenue, capturing both the theatrical and PVOD audience at the optimal time.

Fixed theatrical windows of any length are antiquated. They assume that all films behave the same way. They don’t. Obsession is a perfect example of a film that deserved more time in cinemas. The Marvels was a perfect example of a film that should have moved to PVOD after two weeks.

Comparisons include.

2026’s Send Help dropped 1.8% $8.8m and $47.81m of $64.73m and $94.04m worldwide

2025’s Weapons dropped 37% $15.4m and $115.68m of $151.57m and $270m worldwide

2022’s Smile dropped 32.2% $12.56m and $71.33m of $105.93m and $217.4m worldwide

Impossible to compare with The Invisible Man’s third weekend, as it was days before the first COVID lockdown in March 2020; it took $70.41m and $144.49m worldwide.

There have been many different films using the “be careful what you wish for” plot, often used with comedies including Bedazzled, Bruce Almighty and Liar Lair and horrors The Monkey’s Paw, Wishmaster and The Craft. To be given the chance to have what you dreamed about is the ultimate fantasy, but it normally never ends well, apart from Aladdin, though even Aladdin had to deal with Jafar trying to steal the lamp.

Took $13.8m from 46 territories, $43.2m total, and $148m worldwide; UK $9m; Mexico $3.3m; Australia $ $5.5m; France $4.3m.

• Star Wars: The Mandalorian And Grogu – Disney

Dropped 70% in its second weekend, $24.45m and $136.82m

362^nd biggest second weekend between Shazam! And The Waterboy (close to Star Trek Beyond, Ready Player One, Men in Black II and Star Wars: Episode: A New Hope 1997 SE ($24.3m)

Had the biggest second weekend drop of all Disney Star Wars films.

2015’s The Force Awakens 39%; 2016’s Rogue One 58%; 2017’s The Last Jedi dropped 67%; 2019’s Solo: 65%; 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker 59%

EntTelligence said the average ticket price was $16.01, and PLF $19.43.

It surely wasn’t a shock to anyone especially Disney The Mandalorian And Grogu dropped so heavily in its second weekend as Disney have been in this situation before with making spinoff films from Marvel TV series on Disney+ as seen with 2023’s The Marvels dropping 78% in its second weekend $10.1m and $64.94m of $84.5m and $206.1m worldwide and making Toy Story origin film Lightyear (2022) dropping 64% $18.1m and $89.2m of $118.3m and $226.4m worldwide.

But of course, making a spinoff film was never about box office but merchandising, as Disney will sell many more millions of Grogu dolls. Many analysts have talked about the damage that Star Wars could do, but next year the film will be forgotten as fans return to see the original film in cinemas for its 50^th anniversary. The only question is, will it perform as strongly as its 1997 re-release, opening $35.9m, taking $138.2m and $160.7m worldwide. While May sees Star Wars: Starfighter, even though it’s been seen as an original story within the Star Wars universe, there will surely be much nostalgia for the original trilogy.

There is a thought that The Mandalorian and Grogu could have been seen as a palate cleanser for Disney’s Star Wars to remove all the toxicity surrounding the films since 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker, and Lucasfilm could start afresh with the re-release of the original film for its 50^th anniversary, and then audiences will see Star Wars: Starfighter as they saw The Force Awakens in 2015.

Taken $33.8m worldwide from IMAX; $19.1m from the US and $14.7m international.

Took $27.8m internationally from 62 territories, $109.2m total and $264.6m worldwide; UK $15m; Germany $11.2m; Japan $9.6m; China $9.2m; Australia $7.7m; France $7.1m; Mexico $5.9m; Spain $3.9m; Italy $2.9m; Poland $2.1m.

• Michael – Lionsgate

Dropped 42% in its sixth weekend, $11.86m and $340.06m

EntTelligence Michael’s basic price was $15.01, and the average PLF price was $18.56.

38^th biggest sixth weekend between Incredibles 2 and The Grinch (close to Inside Out 2, Project Hail Mary, The Blind Side and The Jungle Book).

84^th biggest between Project Hail Mary and Zootopia (close to Thor: Love and Thunder, Wicked: For Good, Joker and Alice in Wonderland)

After six, it’s impossible to compare Michael with any musician biopics, as it’s a unique film, and despite many making the comparison with Bohemian Rhapsody, they are very different films, as the fanbase of the two films is very different.

2018’s Bohemian Rhapsody dropped 23% $6.1m and $173.71m of $216.66m and $910.81m WW.

The one thing Bohemian Rhapsody has in common with Micheal and all other musician biopics it was made for their fans who just wanted to see him as they still do, as he was in 1996; they don’t believe the allegations or controversy that have surrounded him ever since, they just love him for his music and how it made them feel 30 years ago, which is how it makes them feel today.

2009’s Michael Jackson: This Is It took $72.09m and $267.98m worldwide; the documentary was the biggest musician film in the US until 2023’s Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour took $180.75m and $261.65m worldwide.

Has taken $60.4m worldwide from IMAX worldwide; $30.1m US and $30.3m internationally.

102^nd biggest worldwide between Thor: Ragnarok and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (close to Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Venom, Inception and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen).

Took $20..1m from 83 territories, $506.3m total, and $846.2m worldwide; UK $64.7m; Australia $29Mm; Brazil $30.5m; Korea $10.3m; France $51m; Mexico $30.6m; Germany $31.7m.

• The Devil Wears Prada 2 – 20^th Century Studios

Dropped 53.8% in its fifth weekend, taking $5.87m and $209.32m

EntTelligence’s average price was $14.56

464^th biggest fifth weekend between The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 and Dinosaur (close to The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Taken 2, Clash of the Titans and In the Line of Fire)

238^th biggest between Coco and Fast Five (close to A Star Is Born, Solo: A Star Wars Story, Wedding Crashers and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory)

After opening twice as big as 2006’s The Devil Wears Prada, the sequel inflation inflated weekend BO is more than the sequel showing the sequel hasn’t had the legs of the original.

Fifth weekends

2006’s The Devil Wears Prada dropped 35.5% $4.67m and $106.56m of $124.74m/$237.9m and $326.72m/$623.1m worldwide

2008’s Sex and the City dropped 41.7% $3.8m and $140.17m of $152.64m/$265.6m and $418.76m/$728.5m worldwide

2015’s Fifty Shades of Grey dropped 48.1% $2.86m and $161.34m of $166.2m/$246.2m and $570m/$844m WW

2024’s It Ends with Us dropped 49% $3.71m and $141.32m of $148.51m and $351.44m worldwide

These were very different films, as they received poor reviews while The Devil Wears Prada 2 received far more positive reactions, again showing there are no comparisons, as other female-led legacy sequels haven’t had the same media attention and audience excitement, as it’s unlikely Practical Magic 2 will get this kind of excitement and media attention.

184^th biggest worldwide between Moana and How to Train Your Dragon (close to The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, Wonka and The Martian).

Took $13.3m from 82 territories, $432.2m total, and $641.6m worldwide; UK $43.4m; Italy $36.6m; Brazil $31.4m; Germany $29.7m; Japan $28.7m; Mexico $28.2m; Australia $27.9m; France $24.7m; China $15m; Spain $11.8m.

• The Breadwinner – Sony Pictures

Opened $10m; received poor reviews (40% Rotten Tomatoes) and A- CinemaScore.

Exhibitors have been selling tickets at a lower price; this flexible pricing was previously used for 2023’s comedy 80 for Brady, opening $12.7m. Many have suggested for a long time that films should have different price tariffs similar to sporting and music events, as you can’t compare Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu with Backrooms, but as long as the industry is focused on box office over admissions, this is likely to be a rarity.

• Power Ballard – Lionsgate

Opened $177,881 from 10 screens; received positive reviews (89% Rotten Tomatoes).

John Carney’s previous films critical acclaim, all opened on limited release, never going wider than 1,500 screens after several weeks, despite great word of mouth, were never huge BO hits. That said, all with low budgets were very profitable and found a far bigger audience on video and streaming.

2016’s Sing Street, opened on the platform, $137,119 from 4 screens, expanded over several weeks, took $3.23m and $13.62m worldwide

2013’s Begin Again, opened on platform $134,064 from 5 screens, expanded over several weeks; took $16,17m and $63.5m worldwide

2007’s Once opened on platform $61,901; 2 screens expanded over several weeks; took $9.43m and $20.93m worldwide

• Pressure – Focus Features

Opened $6m; received positive reviews (94% Rotten Tomatoes) and an A CinemaScore.

Focus Features acquired US rights from Studiocanal, which will release it in their territories in September. The film will play stronger in Europe than in the US, so it was surprising that it opened four months before the UK/France.

The film is about D-Day, based on David Haig’s acclaimed play, set during the tense 72 hours before D-Day; its 82^nd anniversary is June 6^th, which again questions the decision over why it wasn’t released internationally around the same time as its US release. September has been a better release date in the UK for British dramas, and this year also has the Sense & Sensibility reboot, but normally, the UK release is after the Venice Film Festival premiere.

UK Box Office Top 10

Box Office Preview

Opening on Wednesday Masters Of The Universe has received positive reviews calling it fun, silly and corny which is what you expect from a film based on a Mattel action figure, it was never going to be Barbie more like 2009’s G.I Joe (opened £1,708,760/£2,516,023 taking £6,293,469/£9,266,670) and its sequel 2013’s GI Joe: Retaliation (opened £2,792,861/£3,425,852 (including £890,338 previews) taking £7,288,281/£8,940,143).

There was also 1998’s Small Soldiers, which opened £1,137,725/£2,239,110 taking £6,389,337/£12,574,592.

The original film was made by Cannon Films and was more like a B movie, never anything more, opening with £342,680/£1,276,682 from 234 screens, taking £2,198,857/£8,192,021; it came out soon after the popular animated TV series was released, which ran a few years earlier.

If audiences embrace it could open similarly to 2023’s Dungeons & Dragons, which opened £3,544,354, taking £13,666,940.

Having a 5-day opening, it could open between £2.5m-3m will probably see it open #1

Also opening is Scary Movie, the sixth film in the series and the first since 2013. As with Paramount’s Scream reboot, Scary Movie isn’t targeting the teens who saw the original Scary Movie films over a decade ago, but targeting their children. The question is, will they think it’s funny, as the The Naked Gun reboot last year failed to find a new audience. Of course, the difference is that the original cast is back for Scary Movie. That said, are Marlon Wayans and Shawn Wayans known to younger audiences, as the last time they tried to make a spoof was Fifty Shades of Black a decade ago, and that underwhelmed. Scary Movie is likely to do much better in the US than internationally; in the US its tracking to open with $45m-$50m.

2000’s Scary Movie opened £3,191,096/£6,014,277 taking £9,955,478/£18,763,148

2001’s Scary Movie 2 opened £1,553,796/£3,006,257 taking £4,327,602/£8,372,969

2004’s Scary Movie 3 opened £3,490,585/£6,227,079 taking £8,907,831/£15,891,253

2006’s Scary Movie 4 opened £1,953,094/£3,212,378 taking £5,795,802/£9,532,726

2013’s Scary Movie 5 opened £1,085,932/£1,332,054 taking £2,344,473/£2,875,839

After A24’s massive opening for Backrooms last weekend, it’s likely to drop 60-70% in its second weekend as the opening weekend was very frontloaded with the drop off over the Sat/Sun high from its opening day, taking £1.3m-£1.7m.

The Amazing Digital Circus: The Last Act opens in UK cinemas on Thursday, after fans petitioned exhibitors to play it in cinemas, the pilot had over 58m views in Europe. The question is how big the fanbase in the UK is, and after petitioning exhibitors to show it, will they see it over its 4-day opening?

Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu will likely drop 50-60% in their third weekend, losing IMAX/PLF screens and with competition from Masters of the Universe and Scary Movie.

Michael and Obsession will be battling it out for fifth place; Michael will surely drop about 40% in its seventh weekend, taking about £1m, while Obsession, surely unaffected by the new releases, could drop about 20-30%, taking a similar £1m.

The weekend could see up to 7 films taking over £1m, as again all of the films are playing to a wide range of demographics and not cannibalising each other.

Coming Soon

• Toy Story 5 – Disney

Animated adventure comedy sequel to 2019’s Toy Story 4 featuring the voices of Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Tony Hale, John Ratzenberger, Keanu Reeves and Alan Cumming and directed by Andrew Stanton.

It had a red-carpet launch event at the Odeon Leicester Square on May 28^, with a cast Q&A with its premiere in Los Angeles on June 9; social media embargo ends the day after the premiere and review embargo ends 5 pm June 16^th.

After much speculation, it was revealed on June 1st that a new Taylor Swift song I Knew It, I Knew You will feature in the film, and it will be released on June 5th. A few days earlier, at the film’s launch event, director Andrew Stanton said, “The sad truth is, we watched the movie being mixed last week, done, and the song at the end of that was not Taylor Swift’s song.” Must mean the song features during the film, similar to Toy Story 2, with the song When She Loved Me, when Jessie the cowgirl remembers Emily, who used to play with her every day, this time it will surely be around the toys, remembering how they were played with before the tablet arrived. Toy Story 5 is released on June 19^th, the 20^th anniversary of the release of Taylor Swift’s first single Tim McGraw.

The teaser trailer was released in November, receiving 142 million views within 24 hours.

The sixth film in the Toy Story universe and the fifth Toy Story film series since the first film was released 31 years ago. The original trilogy of Toy Story films is one of the best trilogies of films ever, and the way the third film ended was perfect for fans, but with Disney, no film series is ever over, especially as Toy Story 3 took $1bn/$1.7bn worldwide.

Disney knew there might be some negative reactions to continuing the film series, fans would still return for more, and nine years later, Toy Story 4 also took $1bn/$1.5bn and 7 years later, Toy Story 5 will do similar; Toy Story in 1995 took $401m/$1.2bn; Toy Story 2 took $497m/$1.2bn.

While the four Toy Story films over the last 31 years have taken almost $3bn worldwide at the box office, the real reason Disney have made Toy Story 5 and likely developing many more is over the same time it has sold over $30bn in Toy Story merchandising, as with Star Wars: The Mandalorian And Grogu and Moana its not about the film box office, that is just the promotion reel to sell new merchandising lines.

After the release of Toy Story 3 in 2010, Lee Unkrich said Pixar had no plans for a fourth film after the release of Toy Story 3, which felt like the end of the saga, saying “it was really important to me with this film that we not just create another sequel, that it not just be another appendage coming off of the other two”. After the release of Toy Story 4, Pixar said they have no plans for anymore sequel, of course, they changed that very quickly after the original Pixar films they released after Toy Story 4 failed to find their expected audiences.

In the first 10 years of Pixar, they released 6 films with only one sequel. Between 2006 and 2019, they released 15 films, 7 of the 11 have been sequels. When Pixar can make such wonderful original films like Inside Out and Coco, I really don’t understand why they made so many sequels. It’s different for the likes of Dreamworks Animation and Illumination, as they are not in the same league as Pixar.

Disney know that people will moan about yet another sequel, but those people will still get caught up in the hype, FOMO and love of the film series that they will see the sequel this time with their children or grandchildren and buy the merchandising, including the popcorn tub.

The plots of Toy Story have all been the same since the first film.

Toy Story 1: A new toy (Buzz) arrives, destabilising Woody’s world.

Toy Story 2: The “new toy” is a concept—fame and museum immortality with Jessie and the Prospector.

Toy Story 3: The “new toy” is the entire daycare environment and its ruler, Lotso.

Toy Story 4: The “new toy” is Forky, but the core conflict shifts to Woody’s purpose.

If they simply rehash this, the plot would indeed be: New toy threatens the status quo, jealousy, and a misguided attempt to exile/remove it → a crisis reveals the importance of friendship and inclusion, everyone learns to live together.

Disney will say Toy Story 5 isn’t for the audiences who watched the original films in the cinema, it’s for their children, and that’s the one thing Toy Story has over Minions: they play to multiple generations. Children who haven’t seen the previous films in the cinema will go with their parents and their grandparents.

For a 6-year-old in 2026, Toy Story 5 will be their first Toy Story movie. The tablet plot will be fresh and relatable. They won’t have the baggage of Toy Story 3’s perfect ending. Woody and Buzz will be new, exciting characters to them.

The Grandparents and Parents who have nostalgia will be the ones taking the kids to the cinema. So, Disney gets a three-generation payout:

As Marty McFly, “I guess you guys aren’t ready for that yet. But your kids are gonna love it.” The problem is that those who grew up watching Star Wars in the 70s and 80s think Disney’s Star Wars films are for them, but they are for their children. It’s like Toy Story 5 isn’t for the children who saw the original in cinemas in 1996; it’s for their children and for the parents to experience them as their parents did in 1996. (it’s Field of Dreams).

While it’s been 31 years in the US since Toy Story opened, it’s the 30^th anniversary as it opened 4 months later in March 1996; the four films have taken over £200m and over £300m inflation-adjusted.

1996’s Toy Story opened £3,387,160/£6,666,131 taking £22,297,733/£43,883,253

2000’s Toy Story 2 opened £7,758,936/£14,623,312 taking £43,491,021/£81,967,783

2010’s Toy Story 3 opened £21,187,264/£28,522,686 taking £73,405,113/£98,819,320

2019’s Toy Story 4 opened £13,300,000/£14,755,263 taking £66,030,065/£73,254,961

Toy Story 5 will be released during term-time; the first three were delayed to open before school holidays. Toy Story 5 also has to deal with Minions and Monsters opening only 13 days afterwards. Toy Story 4 had The Lion King open 31 days afterwards. With both released during term-time and targeting similar audiences, they will surely cannibalise each other and won’t match previous BO when Pixar and Illumination tentpole sequels didn’t open so close to each other. There is also the little matter of the World Cup happening while the two films open.

It’s the fifth Pixar film Andrew Stanton has directed after A Bug’s Life, Finding Nemo, WALL-E and 2016’s Finding Dory. He also directed two live-action films for Disney: 2012’s John Carter, a massive flop, and 2026’s In the Blink of an Eye, which Disney released straight to streaming.

In the US, Toy Story 5 is tracking to open with $150m, which will be the biggest opening of the film series ahead of 2019’s Toy Story 4‘s $120.9m and this year’s Super Mario Galaxy Movie $131.7m, but 2019’s Toy Story 4’s inflated opening was $164.5m, and its $434m total is $640m. While 2010’s Toy Story 3’s $110.3m opening was inflated to $175 m, and its $415m total was inflated to $667 m

1999’s Toy Story 2 opened $70.5m and $164.5m, taking $245.8m and $570m inflated

1995’s Toy Story opened $29.1m and $82.5m, taking $223.3m and $630.9m inflated

The Bottom Line

Toy Story 5 will make a billion dollars. The soundtrack will be everywhere. The Taylor Swift song will be number one. The toys will fly off the shelves. The parents will cry. The children will cheer. The cycle will continue.

But the magic is gone. The original was a film that happened to be successful. The sequel is a product designed to be successful. It’s not a tribute; it’s a cash grab. It’s not a celebration; it’s a concession.

The franchise has become a self-licking ice cream cone. The films exist to sell toys. The toys exist to promote the films. And the audience is caught in the middle, paying for both.

The Lunchbox is the film. The toy is the product. The nostalgia is the bait. And we’re all still biting.

Toy Story 5 is the embodiment of the “Field of Dreams Fallacy” as a business model. Disney knows we are nostalgic. They know we will pay the price of admission, both financial and emotional, for a chance to reconnect with that feeling. And they know that, crucially, the new generation (the “grandchildren”) provides a perpetual justification to keep the cycle going.

Director Andrew Stanton has said they have no plans yet for Toy Story 6, but it will surely be announced soon after the fifth is released.

The long-range weather forecast is predicting another heatwave over the weekend of Toy Story 5, but audiences will still come out to see it in their millions, showing that it was just an excuse for Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu last weekend.

Toy Story 6: The Digital Menace. As you said, Bonnie’s new “toy” is an AI subscription. The villain is a smooth-talking, all-knowing AI assistant that makes the physical toys feel obsolete. The lesson: “Real play is better than screen time!” (Sponsored by Disney on your iPad).

Toy Story 7: The NFT. A limited-edition Buzz Lightyear NFT is minted on the blockchain. The physical Buzz has to journey into the internet to confront his digital twin, who claims to be the “true, verified” Buzz.

Toy Story 8: The Subscription Box. A new toy arrives every month, making the old toys feel like they’re in a constant state of replacement anxiety. The plot becomes a commentary on consumerism and planned obsolescence.

Toy Story 9: The Meta-Sequel. The toys discover they are characters in a long-running film franchise. Woody has an existential crisis about his own nostalgia-based irrelevance. The villain is a slick Hollywood executive toy who wants to “reboot” the nursery.