Top 5 Breakdown

1. Black Panther – £17,700,000 – NE

Took 58% of its box office Fri-Sun £9.92m and £7.19m over its three days of previews which inflated its opening to have the second biggest Marvel Cinematic Universe film in the UK behind Avengers: Age of Ultron becoming the biggest solo MCU film opening in the UK;
It took more in its opening 6 days than Ant-Man, Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger and Iron Man.
With the two extra days of previews taking £4.53m its impossible to make compassion with any other MCU film, apart from Thor: Ragnarok and Doctor Strange as just removing the preview box office £12.58m for a four-day opening or £9.92m for 3-day opening won’t give the true indication of its box office without previews.
Captain America: Civil War opened with £14,466,681 from three-day weekend and £18,882,815 from the 4-day weekend including Bank Holiday. Avengers: Age of Ultron opened with £18,015,774 including £3,599,937 from Thursday previews in April 2015 which is currently Marvel’s biggest ever opening day for a Marvel film; biggest opening day in the UK is Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Thursday) £9.68m.

Opened with £2.67m in the UK from Tuesday 25% more than Thor: Ragnarok and 16% more than Deadpool and having the biggest opening day of the year so far topping Fifty Shades Freed (Friday) £2.66m.
Took £2.45m Wednesday and £2.07m on Thursday and £3.08m Friday taking £7.19m for its three days of previews 89.7% more than Doctor Strange (£3.79m) and 30.9% from Thor: Ragnarok (£5.49m which was 41% of Doctor Strange weekend box office of £9,288,898 and 44.3% of Thor: Ragnarok £12,375,804
Extended opening weekends rarely increase a film opening weekend instead spreads the box office over several more days as seen with Black Panther first four days. Only need to compare last years three day opening of Beauty and the Beast £19.7m took £27.55m over its first 7 days and Dunkirk opening with £10.2m taking £18.72m to see that extended weekends will normally spread weekend box office over a week why it is also impossible to then compare Fri-Sun box office with other releases.

Captain America: Civil War took £4.7m on its opening day taking £14.46m over its three days weekend which is much more than recent 6-day openers Doctor Strange, Thor: Ragnarok and Black Panther. CACW is always the film of reference compare Black Panther to as Thor: Ragnarok and Spider-Man: Homecoming as it started the Marvel Cinematic story arc that ends with Spider-Man: Homecoming 2 in July 2019. While Black Panther might be the first solo film for the character and received much media, coverage being the first black comic-book movie (which of course it’s not Blade 20 years ago) the audience for the film would be close to those who had seen the last 17 films being a story continuation.
Always query a box office like Black Panther with no odd numbers which were similar to last years Beauty and the Beast opening of £19.7m and this week fifth weekend of Coco as they look like they have been rounded up as its rare for a film box office to not have an odd amount total.
Its impossible to compare with Deadpool’s 2016 opening of £13,729,803 including £3,762,513 from two days of previews as while both were solo films from existing film series Black Panther after his appearance in Captain America: Civil War and being far more of a cultural and racial phenomenon was always going to play stronger. While of course Black Panther is a 12A and was released in 3D along with the extra days play.
Much was made after it was revealed in 1998 Sony Pictures turned down a deal to acquire rights to many Marvel characters for $25m but this was the year after Batman and Robin flopped was no interest in comic-book movies as 90s comic-book movies included Barb Wire, The Shadow, The Phantom and Judge Dredd. 20^th Century Fox’s first X-Men film wasn’t a huge priority for the studio had been in development at several different studios since the mid-80s and was originally due to be released Christmas 2000. Its release was brought forward 6 months as Steven Spielberg had delayed Minority Report to make film A.I. and X-Men was used to fill the gap, so X-Men wasn’t expected to launch a franchise which is now 10 films with two more to be released in 2018 taking almost $5 billion worldwide. But it is the success of X-Men and Spider-Man 2 years later which gave Marvel the belief that their Marvel Cinematic Universe they launched three years later could be as successful.
1998 also brought the first black Marvel comic-book movie Blade which many people forget as there has been so much hype around Black Panther as it is the first solo black comic-book movie Blade did it 20 years earlier. Marvel has received much praise for taking this “risk” in making Black Panther but they choose to launch it in the 18^th MCU film after giving the Black Panther a soft launch in Captain America: Civil War as they did with Spider-Man. When Marvel announced their original 10 film slate of films Black Panther was one of those ten films so then why did it take until the 18^th film for Marvel to make it. DC took a far bigger risk with Wonder Woman.
After the hype surrounding Black Panther and the fact that it was always likely to play to a much wider audience who don’t go to see comic-book movies was always likely to have one of the biggest opening weekends for MCU in the UK, especially having 6-day opening weekend and opening during half-term holidays. The big question has always been how will it hold as with the exception of Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man (4x opening) were helped by opening during the summer holidays all other were nearer 2.5x opening normally having an extended opening will drop that down slightly so expected to take about £43m+ with a £4.9m second weekend.

2. Fifty Shades Freed – £2,730,197 – £13,361,739

Dropping 55.48% in its second weekend holding close to last year’s Fifty Shades Darker
The three films have now taken over £55m at the UK box office with Fifty Shades of Grey taking almost 50% of the total showing how the first film performed so well while the sequels have underwhelmed but that was predictable given the two-year gap between the first and the second films.
Fifty Shades of Grey dropped 66.07% in its second weekend in 2015 holding #1; Fifty Shades Darker dropped slightly less 54.52% holding in second behind The Lego Batman Movie.

Director James Foley released in an interview Jamie Dornan shot some full-frontal nudity scenes for Fifty Shades Freed but the director felt it didn’t add anything to the story. The film was “written” by a woman and the films target audience was women so would want to see the johnson rather than Johnson so while it might not add anything to the story, but it is the scene those who have sat through the whole trilogy deserved to get. I the end of Fifty Shades of Grey he flashed his penis in a montage scene but doesn’t show as much flesh as Dakota does but most women don’t really want to see other women naked.
Dakota spoke about this a lot during the promo tur saying I mean, there is a lot more of my body that’s shown than Jamie’s actually,” she noted, adding that “weirdly he’s the one doing all the push-ups.” “I really had to get ready for it each time and know exactly what we were going to do and how we were going to accomplish shooting the scenes, the more intimate ones,” she explained of the “serious psychological preparation” she did for the film. “Over the course of the three films, it never got easier. It wasn’t like, ‘Oh, this old thing,’ you know?”

Fifty Shades Freed was the final part of the trilogy but E.L James published Darker this year.

3. The Shape of Water – £2,466,217 – NE

After taking £0.92m from previews on Wed/Thurs took £1.55m from Fri-Sun; its opening was close to Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri which opened with £2.36m in January.
Guillermo del Toro has switched from art-house with Pan’s Labyrinth opened in November 2006 with £298,432 holding strong in its second weekend down only 17% taking £246,342 going on to take £2,694,482. To more recent more mainstream film Hellboy II: The Golden Army (£7.61m), Pacific Rim (£8.39m) and Crimson Peak (£2.54m) that had mixed success at the box office.
The Shape of Water could perform similarly to its studio stablemate Three Billboards over the next few weeks as it builds up momentum towards the Oscars.

The two films won the major awards at the BAFTA awards on Sunday with The Shape of water winning Best Director and Three Billboards Best Film, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Best Original Screenplay.
At the Oscars next month, it is likely The Shape of Water will win both Best Film and Best Director. BAFTA and the Oscars haven’t agreed on Best Film since 2014 the last three years BAFTA went for La La Land Oscars Moonlight, in 2016 BAFTA The Revenant while Oscars Spotlight and 2015 BAFTA went for Boyhood and Oscars went for Birdman. But the previous five years BAFTA and Oscars agreed on Best Film with Argo, The Hurt Locker, The King’s Speech, The Artist, and 12 Years a Slave.
Guillermo del Toro is the fourth Mexican filmmaker in the last five years to get a Best Director nomination (Alejandro G. Iñárritu Birdman and The Revenant) and Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity) Alejandro González Iñárritu was the first Mexican director to be nominated for Babel in 2006.

4. The Greatest Showman – £1,927,367 – £30,414,668

Down only 0.08% in its eighth weekend and this weekend will surely be boosted again by sing-along screenings; if it wasn’t for The Shape of Water two days of previews The Greatest Showman would be #3
The Greatest Showman has become the 12th biggest film of 2017 and becoming become 20th Century Fox’s biggest film of 2017 and their biggest film since 2016’s Deadpool. On Monday it overtook La La Land £30,4m. While many critics called The Greatest Showman as fake but as I’ve said many times before La La Land was far faker.
Incredibly The Greatest Showman over the next week will overtake La La Land, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Thor: Ragnarok and It, to be the eighth biggest 2017 release; has taken 84.36% £25,660,619 of its box office in 2018 more than Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle £19.36m and Star Wars: The Last Jedi £14.28m.

The Greatest Showman could take upwards of £10m which would see it getting close to Les Misérables £40.8m becoming 20^th Century Fox’s fifth biggest film in the UK ahead of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, The Simpsons Movie and Deadpool.

If it was to take £37m+ The Greatest Showman would hold better than Avatar and Titanic with its opening weekend box office (not including previews) only 6.95% of its box office. The only 20^th Century Fox film to better it was 1997’s The Full Monty/

The film’s soundtrack is still #1 in the UK for its sixth week selling 51,000 copies 70% were physical copies. Despite the arrival of Fifty Shades Freed and Black Panther soundtracks also in the top 10 and the boost in sales of the Brit nominees, it is expected to stay #1 for the seventh week; Keala Settle’s This is Me climbed up to #3 from 6 last week.
The Greatest Showman must be comparable with its holding power as Titanic was 20 years ago down only as fans of the film are seeing it multiple times as they did when they did similar for Titanic in January 1998.
Hugh Jackman invited the whole primary school in Scotland to see The Greatest Showman after he saw a performance of This is Me they performed in January. Hugh Jackman shared it with his 12m followers and 20th Century Fox invited the 230 pupils to see the film on Friday in a local cinema. This is one of many videos that have been created by fans of the film that have helped it generate huge buzz over its eight weeks on release.
A key part of the film’s popularity has been seen by the amount of fan-made content that has been generated for the film including three teens who recorded capella rendition of songs from the film which has gone viral since it was released last month viewed more than 267,000 times after seeing it for “the 100^th time”. The film has become the Titanic of this decade as fans are seeing its dozens of times.

5. Coco – £1,400,000 – £15,256,165

Up 15.36% in its fifth weekend due to half-term holidays, Coco took £3,581,552 over the last week and £2,181,552 Mon-Thurs which was less than the £3m Big Hero 6 took over half-term holidays 3 years ago but Coco was one week further in its release and had competition from Early Man.
After five weeks on release Big Hero 6 had taken £17.66m (91.3%) of its final box office of £19.34m which would see Coco taking about £18m which would be the lowest performing Disney animation film in the UK since 2010’s The Princess and the Frog; £18m for most animated films would be a huge success but for Disney Animation must be disappointment. Their films receive critical acclaim and regularly perform strongly at the box office and after Coco strong performance in the US and international £20m+ must have been the minimum expected?

While Moana had taken £13.7m after 5 weeks of its £20.4m total holding very strongly in January and then into half-term holidays so coco could still do similar but does have 6 weeks before Easter holidays.

Coco, as Early Man, will be limited to weekend matinees for the next few weeks before Easter, but Peter Rabbit opens in less than a month despite it receiving poor reviews it will be the film younger audiences will want to see as they did with The Emoji Movie.
Was a surprising decision by Disney to open Coco in January against Early Man as both were targeting similar young boy demographics which was different to last year with Sing and The Lego Batman Movie. Disney delayed Coco from early December release to avoid opening so close to Paddington 2 but by open so close to Early Man both films have done far less than many would have expected Coco should have taken £20m+ and Early Man £15m+.
Of course, with the huge opening of Black Panther it won’t mean that much to Disney but for Studiocanal with their far more limited slate Early Man was their biggest film of the year and would have hoped the audience that saw the trailer playing with Paddington 2 would see Early Man.
Disney will of course expect far bigger success with their two sequels Incredibles 2 in July (Incredibles took £32m in 2004) and Ralph Breaks the Internet: Wreck-It Ralph 2 (Wreck-It Ralph took £21.61m in February 2013) opening in December
Also released

Universal Pictures – Lady Bird opened with £184,254 from only 10 screens expanding wide this weekend; the film never won any awards at the BAFTAs but is more likely to win Oscars.

Warner Bros – Father Figures opened with £250,465 from 323 screens opening close to last year’s CHiPs: Law and Disorder opened with in March 2017 with £205,933.
UK box office in detail
This weekend’s top 10 box office took £29,122,391 up 102.8% from last weekend £14,358,028
The weekend admissions 3,888,170 up 98.789% from last weekend 1,955,997; despite 3% inflation in the UK in 2017 UK Cinema Association/BFI are claiming average ticket prices in 2017 was up only 1% to £7.49; in the US inflation for 2017 was only 2% but their average price increased by 3.6%.
9 films opened at weekend taking £20,715,176; Black Panther 85.4% (£17,700,000); The Shape of Water 11.9% (£2,466,217); remaining 7 films shared 2.65% (£548,959): Black Panther took 60.8% of the top 10 box office.
The weekend was up 73.3% from last year (£16,799,621): John Wick: Chapter Two £2,232,055, The Great Wall £1,646,516, Hidden Figures £1,448,214, Moonlight £621,836, Moulin Rouge! (Secret Cinema 2017) £376,900, The Founder £231,716
Up 79.5% from 2016: (£16,221,692): How To Be Single £1,876,539, Triple 9 £812,619, The Finest Hours £247,643
Next weekend in 2017: (£11,360,198) Patriots Day £843,380, A Cure for Wellness £409,540,

UK Box Office Top 10

US Box Office Top 10

US Box office

• Disney – Black Panther

Opened with $201.97m; received 97% Rotten Tomatoes score and A+ CinemaScore the 44^th film to do so since 2000 and the second Marvel Cinematic Universe film to receive an A+ the previous film was 2012’s The Avengers.
It’s the fifth film to open with over $200m after Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Jurassic World and The Avengers.
After four days on release, its 25th highest grossing comic book adaptation of all-time, 12th highest grossing film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and 17th highest grossing Marvel comic adaptation of all-time and the biggest February opening weekend and President’s Day opening.

Had the eighth biggest opening day $75.8m was close to 2016’s Captain America: Civil War $75.5m; while tracking at the start of the year started at $100m+ and grew over the following weeks to $150m+ last week and opening close to $179.13m Captain America: Civil War was always expected.
In 2005 Marvel announced their first slate of films Captain America, The Avengers, Nick Fury, Black Panther, Ant-Man, Cloak & Dagger, Doctor Strange, Hawkeye, Power Pack, and Shang-Chi. Iron Man wasn’t part of the list at the time as New Line Cinema had rights to the film when this deal was announced in April 2005 but two months later they acquired rights for Iron Man and Marvel fully financed the film themselves separate from this deal. Over years that followed Captain America, The Avengers, Nick Fury, Ant-Man, Doctor Strange, and Hawkeye all featured in Marvel Cinematic Universe films, but Black Panther was notably absent as the most well-known comic-book character of the rest.
Much has been said that Black Panther marks a new kind of comic-book movie and that it is launching a new kind of film but a film like Get Out is far more important to the how films can play to a non-white male audience. Disney chose to make Black Panther now after much of the heavy work has been done in recent years showing that films with a non-white cast can play to a wide audience.
As Ian Malcolm said 25 years ago in Jurassic Park “If I may… Um, I’ll tell you 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, and now this..”
Disney has let others do the hard part making these other films that have had moderate success over the years waiting for the momentum to build to find the right time to release their films. Or why would they have waited so long to make Black Panther, Black Widow or Captain Marvel they have seen rival studios have success with female comic-book movies Wonder Woman or female action films Lucy, Atomic Blonde and upcoming Red Sparrow and Tomb Raider and seen that now is the time to make their own versions.
African American moviegoers are driving the box office for Black Panther which is probably why tracking has been so poor for the film which often happens to films targeting non-white audiences (PostTrak reported 40% of the US audience were African American). While Black Panther was always going to play strongly to the normal MCU demographic and as Wonder Woman attracted audiences that wouldn’t normally see a comic-book movie.
The strong opening of Black Panther will boost the prospects of Disney’s adaption of children’s classic A Wrinkle In Time directed by Ava DuVernay who was originally attached to direct Black Panther. A Wrinkle In Time is currently tracking to open with $35m four weeks before release but will likely open with close to double.
Twitter hashtags for #BlackPanther and @TheBlackPanther set an all-time movie record since Thursday with 559K Twitter posts in one day over twice (232K) #LastJedi had in December. Last week Twitter announced Black Panther has been tweeted about more than 5 million times more than any other film this year so far it is also the biggest first-quarter presale ever for Fandango in its 18-year history.

The teaser trailer was released in June and viewed 89m times in the first 24 hours and reaction was very positive; the trailer was released in October and a third trailer released in December.
Black Panther has a social media universe of 901m far more than other Marvel films in their opening week Thor: Ragnarok 858m and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 at 792m; Black Panther had 390K daily YouTube views with a total of 340m close to Facebook 330m. The reason is that Black Panther plays beyond the normal comic-book fan audience as many who had no interest in ever seeing a comic-book movie as Star Wars film saw Black Panther as they did for The Force Awakens and Wonder Woman.
While much is said that Black Panther was the first solo film for the character it is the 18^th Marvel Cinematic Universe film and must be compared as a further chapter in the film series especially as the story arc started in Captain America: Civil War and will go until Spider-Man: Homecoming 2. All Marvel Cinematic Universe films must be compared to each other as the audience who see one would likely see others the difference with Black Panther is that audience should be wider as it has been the first black comic-book movie which of course it’s not but that hasn’t stopped fans of MCU saying so.
Black Panther’s big opening was always expected the bigger question has always been how it will hold over the weeks after release as all other Marvel Cinematic Universe films apart from Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man have taken 2.4-2.7x opening which would see Black Panther take between $425m-$485m. If it was to hold better, would take $500m+, either way, its likely Black Panther will be the biggest solo MCU film but Black Panther was always going to be much more than a comic-book movie to many.
With limited competition next week neither Annihilation or Game Night is likely to have much impact on the box office. Jennifer Lawrence thriller Red Sparrow opening in two weeks will be targeting a different audience Black Panther’s next direct competition will be from Disney’s A Wrinkle In Time targeting the similar non-comic-book that has come out to see Black Panther and seeing the trailer before Black Panther has surely boosted its opening weekend.
Took $169m internationally and $371m worldwide

• Sony Pictures – Peter Rabbit

Down 29.6% in its second weekend taking $17.6m and $48.57m total
After opening close to last years, The Emoji Movie it is holding similar taking $49.1m and Goosebumps $43.73m. Peter Rabbit will likely perform close to both of those film.

• Universal Pictures – Fifty Shades Freed

Down 55.1% in its second weekend taking $17.32m and $76.53m total
Fridays box office dropped 69.3% from its opening day close to 68.6% Fifty Shades Freed last year but less than 73.4% Fifty Shades of Grey dropped in 2015.
Fifty Shades of Grey dropped 73.9% in 2015 ($22.25m) and Fifty Shades Darker dropped 56.5% ($20.27m) but Fifty Shades Freed is expected to drop heavier than Fifty Shades Freed as has Black Panther opening against it in its second weekend far bigger competition than last years The Great Wall, Fist Fight and A Cure for Wellness.
Fifty Shades Freed took $190.8m internationally and $269.4m worldwide; Fifty Shades of Grey took $572m globally and Fifty Shades Darker took $381.1m globally

• Warner Bros – The 15:17 To Paris

Down 39.3% in its second weekend taking $7.62m and $25.67m total
The 15:17 To Paris is holding close to many of Clint Eastwood’s films between 2008’s Grand Torino and 2014’s Jersey Boys.
Clint Eastwood next film is expected to be The Mule which would see him return to acting playing the world’s oldest drug mule. Clint Eastwood’s last acting role was in 2012’s Trouble with the Curve.

• Sony Pictures – Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle

Down 20.9% in its ninth weekend taking $7.92m and $377.6m;
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle will become the second biggest Sony Pictures film in the US on Monday overtaking Spider-Man 2 and will become their biggest ever film overtaking Spider-Man over the next few weeks taking over $400m.
It is 33^rd biggest film in the US overtaking Deadpool and Spider-Man 2 and will shortly overtake Finding Nemo, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.
Jumanji took $527m internationally and $906.6m worldwide; Jumanji is now the #46 biggest film globally having overtaken Spider-Man 3 (becoming Sony Pictures second biggest film globally behind Skyfall) and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and will shortly overtake Shrek 2 and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers depending on how well it does in Japan in April it could overtake Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Finding Nemo
It is rumoured Jumanji 2 will be released December 19^th, 2019 replacing Masters of the Universe after the director left the project which will be part of a franchise heavy slate including two Marvel films Silver and Black and Spider-Man: Homecoming 2, The Angry Birds Movie 2 and two reboots Charlie’s Angels and Men in Black. Eon has yet to announce who will release Bond 25 internationally if they were to get Bond 25 with Jumanji 2 the final months of 2019 could be very lucrative.

• 20th Century Fox – The Greatest Showman

Dropped only 21.3% in its ninth weekend taking $5.07m and $154.44m
It is now the fourth biggest musical film in the US overtaking Les Miserables and La La Land becoming the biggest original musical in the US and will likely overtake Chicago over the next couple of weeks.
Its holding stronger than last year’s La La Land which had 92% Rotten Tomatoes compared to only 55% for The Greatest Showman and only has been nominated for Best Original Song; after 9 weeks of La La Land going wide it took $4.59m and $133.59m; 88.4% of final box office of $151m if The Greatest Showman held similarly would take over $175m overtaking Chicago to become the third biggest musical behind Beauty and the Beast and Grease.
The New York Times asked their readers what was so great about the film with over 1,200 replies via the websites, Twitter and Facebook saying why they loved including Hugh Jackman. Many of those readers had already seen the film multiple times one had seen it over 20 times (the last film to have such an impact on its audience with so many repeat viewings must e Titanic 20 years ago).
Many said it was pure escapism to get away from the horrible news stories (in the UK The Full Monty was a massive success in 1997 opened the weekend Princess Diana died and it was the film people turned to similarly in 2001 Moulin Rouge opened the weekend before the tragic events of 9/11 and it performed strongly in the UK for weeks after. Both films were also great audience films these outside issues could of course never be predicted which is what makes a film so different to anything else. The opposite happened last June after the tragic events at the end of the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester and the London terrorist attack the One Love Manchester Concert supporting the victims of the terrorist attack was on the weekend of Wonder Woman. Millions of teens choose to watch their real-life superhero in concert instead of Gal Gadot in Wonder Woman).
It was also seen as it celebrates outcasts in a similar way Pitch Perfect (first two films third film was poor which also helped The Greatest Showman) and Glee did 10 years ago. Many critics criticised the songs but for cinemagoers, they liked the positive messages the songs gave as many of the characters are outcasts and freaks and play to the importance of equality today. Black Panther seems much falser as they have seen how other films have taken this message over recent years The Greatest Showman as much more organic as it was never expected to do so.
The film due to the songs has played for better in English speaking countries that said opened #1 in Japan taking $4.4m.
The soundtrack is now #3 in the US below Black Panther and Fifty Shades Freed in 5^th; for the second time in 10 years and the tenth times since 1963 are three soundtracks in the top 5;
May 30, 2015; #1 – Pitch Perfect 2, #3 – Fifty Shades of Grey, #5 – Furious 7
Sept. 8, 2007, #1 – High School Musical 2 #3 – Hannah Montana 2/Meet Miley Cyrus #4 – Hairspray
Sept. 1, 2007, #1 – High School Musical 2 #2 – Hannah Montana 2/Meet Miley Cyrus #5 – Hairspray
Aug. 15, 1998, #2 – Armageddon – The Album #3 – City of Angels #5 – Dr. Dolittle: The Album
July 11, 1998, #1 – City of Angels #4 – Armageddon — The Album #5 – Hope Floats
July 4, 1998, #1 – City of Angels #4 – Hope Floats #5 – Godzilla — The Album
June 27, 1998, #2 – City of Angels #4 – Godzilla — The Album #5 – Hope Floats
June 20, 1998, #3 – City of Angels #4 – Godzilla — The Album #5 – Hope Floats
March 13, 1965, #1 – Mary Poppins #2 – Goldfinger #5 – My Fair Lady
The Greatest Showman took $9.6m over the weekend and $185.6m internationally taking over $341.27m worldwide.

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• Lionsgate – Early Man

Opens with $3.18m; received B CinemaScore and 81% Rotten Tomatoes score.
Early Man opened a month after Paddington 2 opened with rave reviews but also opened disappointingly as audience preferred to see Peter Rabbit opening closer to Aardman Animations last film Shaun the Sheep Movie in August 2015 opened with $4.03m taking $19.36m.
Previous Aardman Animations Arthur Christmas opened November 2011 with $12.06m taking $46.46m and The Pirates! Band of Misfits opened April 2012 with $11.13m taking $31.05m both released by Sony.
Chicken Run was Aardman Animations biggest film in the US opened in June 2000 with $17.5m taking $106.83m, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit opened with $16.02m taking $56.11m in 2005 and Flushed Away opened in November 2006 with $18.81m taking $64.66m all three released by Dreamworks Pictures.
All Oscar nominees dropped

• 20^th Century Fox – The Post – down 815 screens – down 44.9%
• Fox Searchlight – The Shape of Water down 823 screens – down 47.3%
• Fox Searchlight – Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri down 493 screens – down 34%
• Neon – I. Tonya down 586 screens – down 47.5%
• Focus Features – Darkest Hours – down 443 screens – down 42.4%
• Focus Features – Phantom Thread – down 203 screens – down 39.5%
• A24 – Lady Bird – down 244 screens – down 32.9%
• Sony Pictures Classics – Call Me By Your Name – down 143 screens – down 24.9%

Opening UK
UK Box Office Predictions
While Black Panther was always likely to have a very big opening after the buzz, media coverage and its six-day weekend the bigger question was always how it will hold. Except for the summer, Marvel films, Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man previous MCU films opening weekend is about 40% of final box office and second-weekend drop is about 60% but after 6 days opening weekend 70% second-weekend drop is more likely of about £5m+.
With The Greatest Showman having sing-along screenings will likely get fabs to see it for the dozenth time and likely to climb back into second dropping about 10%.
With Fifty Shades Freed and The Shape of Water fighting it out for third and Coco and Finding Your Feet which has received strong media coverage and good reviews over recent weeks fighting it out for fifth. But with the Oscar nominees, The Shape of Water, Lady Bird, Darkest Hour and Three Billboards could be squeezed at the box office but will likely spark up more interest mid-week as the grey pound works better mid-week.
Lady Bird expands in its second weekend after a strong limited release. With Darkest Hour and Three Billboard sparking up some more interest after their BAFTA wins.

Opening February 23^rd
Opening UK

• Finding Your Feet – eOne

Romantic comedy-drama starring Imelda Staunton, Timothy Spall, Celia Imrie and Joanna Lumley and directed by Richard Loncraine; received its world premiere at the Palm Springs International Film Festival in January winning the audience award.
These films normally play stronger mid-week than weekends

It will, of course, be compared to feel good British films about a certain age like Calendar Girls and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and its second opening the same weekend.
Calendar Girls opened September 14^th, 2003 with £1,762,505 up 5.3% in its second weekend (£1,855,986) taking £20,174,133
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel opened February 26^th, 2011 with £2,222,051 up 6.2% in its second weekend (£2,359,383) taking £18,994,423
The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel opened February 26^th, 2015 with £3,771,852 down 36% in its second weekend (£1,957,256) taking £15,555,179 (opened three weeks after Fifty Shades of Grey)
The Lady in the Van opened 13^th November 2015 £2,256,121 down 29% in its second weekend (£1,609,943) taking £13,161,728
Waking Ned opened 21^st March 1999 £911,901 down 18.1% in its second weekend (£746,476) taking £6,665,029
Shall We Dance opened February 20^th, 2005 £1,080,140 taking £3,776,565
But more recent films like Hampstead openly managed to open with £0.45m taking £1.59m but did open against several other films targeting the grey pound Churchill, My Cousin Rachel, The Beguiled, Rules Don’t Apply, Wilson, Miss Sloane, The Zookeeper’s Wife, The Sense of Ending, Going in Style and Their Finest that all underwhelmed.

• I, Tonya – eOne

Biographical sports black comedy starring Margot Robbie, Caitlin Carver, Sebastian Stan, Julianne Nicholson, Bobby Cannavale and Allison Janney and directed by Craig Gillespie; had a world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival receiving positive reviews (90% Rotten Tomatoes) with another strong performance from Margot Robbie who also produced the film.
Tonally the trailer reminded me of Gus Van Sant’s black comedy To Die For starring Nicole Kidman which she won Best Actress Golden Globe Margot Robbie similarly was nominated for Best Actress for the Golden Globes, BAFTAs and Oscars but Saoirse Ronan won for her performance in Lady Bird.
To Die For was a fantastic black comedy about one woman who would do anything to be on TV was probably 20 years ahead of its time underwhelmed at the box office taking $21.28m, I, Tonya 23 years later has taken $28m; in the UK To Die For similarly disappointed taking £1,645,594;
Since her breakthrough role in The Wolf of Wall Street Margot Robbie has starred in many films including Focus, The Big Short, Suicide Squad and Goodbye Christopher Robin next voices Flopsy in Peter Rabbit out next month and Mary Queen of Scots (starring with Saoirse Ronan) released in September. She starts work on Quentin Tarantino’s Project #9 dated for release August 9^th, 2019 by Sony Pictures which has generated controversy recently after Tarantino’s comments about Roman Polanski and wanting him to star in the film.

Screened To Die For, for Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise at Rank Film Distributors Preview Theatre late one night in April 1995 Tom Cruise was shooting Mission Impossible at Pinewood Studios and Nicole Kidman wanted to see the film before it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.
I, Tonya was the first Academy screener that was leaked online in January the pirates at the time said they would release Star Wars: The Last Jedi as it needed to be seen in a cinema, but they didn’t keep their promise as it was leaked online within 6 weeks of release.
While it’s understandable a distributor would want to release their Oscar nominees between BAFTA awards and Oscars the problem is with Lady Bird and The Shape of Water opening last weekend I, Tonya is also targeting a similar audience.
While I, Tonya had a slow platform release in the US over 6 weeks it will be going immediately wide in the UK. Platform opening used to be regular in the UK but now they have become less common. Instead, a distributor would open a film on 200+ screens and then add more the second weekend which is a dangerous game to play as if it doesn’t find an audience in week one it won’t get a chance to expand.
Was the case with eOne’s The Death of Stalin last October the film had generated strong buzz and good reviews but opened on 138 screens taking £995,458 October 20^th opening in fifth adding 176 screens in its second weekend down 18% to £812,288. Had the film opened wide in its first week it had a chance opening top instead it lost some of its momentum. The opposite was true for STX’s Breathe which premiered at the London Film Festival receiving positive reviews but opened wide in 463 screens taking only £535,675 dropping 68% in its second weekend. Universal Pictures opened Lady Bird
Opening in the US

• Annihilation – Paramount Pictures

Sci-fi horror starring Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Gina Rodriguez, Tessa Thompson, Tuva Novotny, and Oscar Isaac and directed by Alex Garland, based on the novel by Jeff VanderMeer.
After a poor test screening, one of the producers was concerned the fil was “too intellectual” and “too complicated” demanding changes to the film which Alex Garland refused as did Scott Rudin who had final cut. A few days later in December was announced Netflix acquired international rights for the film and would release it 17 days after its US opening close to the deal done for Shaft remake due to be released by Warner Bros next year. Netflix also acquired earlier this month Cloverfield Paradox which they released immediately after the Super Bowl.
Alex Garland was disappointed that a film he made to be seen in the cinema will instead be seen on the small screen, but he did say the best genre drama he had seen recently was Handmaid’s Tale.
Alex Garland’s directorial debut 2015’s Ex Machina opened on limited release for two weeks before going wide taking $5.34m and $25.44m total. Annihilation opening on only 2,000 screens the week after Black Panther despite strong buzz is likely to face Extinction at the box office (Extinction being another film Netflix have acquired for their streaming services).

• Game Night – Warner Bros

Comedy thriller starring Jason Bateman, Rachel McAdams, Kyle Chandler, Billy Magnussen, Sharon Horgan, Lamorne Morris, Kylie Bunbury, Jesse Plemons, Michael C. Hall, Danny Huston and Jeffrey Wright and directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein.
Trailers look like Date Night meets Horrible Bosses; Date Night opened with $25.2m in April 2010 taking $98.71m and Horrible Bosses opened July 2011 with $28.3m taking $117.53m but since then the bottom has fallen out with R-rated comedies except for Bad Moms.
John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein the last film was 2015’s Vacation the National Lampoon’s reboot underwhelmed at the box office opening with $14.68m taking $58.88m
In recent years New Line Cinema which is now production company within Warner Bros make 5-6 mostly low budget comedies and horrors last year Fist Fight, Going in Style, The House, Annabelle: Creation, It (their biggest film since 2003’s Lord of the Rings The Return of the King) and The Disaster Artist. This year along with Game Night also made Life of the Party, Tag, The Hun and Rampage and next year will release It: Chapter Two alongside comedies Isn’t it Romantic and Margie Claus, Shaft reboot and DC’s Shazam!
New Line Cinema was a hugely successful independent studio launched in 1967 but was 1984’s Nightmare on Elm Street that put the studio on the map and ten years later it was brought by Turner Broadcasting Services which was merged into Warner Bros in 1996 but New Line Cinema was run separately from the studio until 2007 after $180m budget The Golden Compass flopped.
New Line Cinema’s first produced film Warner Bros released was 2010’s Valentine’s Day and since released up to 6 films a year. The same is likely to happen when Disney takes over 20^th Century Fox they will become a production company making half a dozen live-action films close to what Touchstone and Hollywood Pictures used to make for Disney in the 80s and 9s.