Top 5 Breakdown

1. Kung Fu Panda 3 – £4.76m – NE

 After huge marketing campaign which started in December with Sky Broadband advert having its European premiere last Sunday and strong reviews opening was slightly subdued compared with the first two films. But previous films were inflated with many more days of previews. Whilst this film will be mostly limited to matinees for its opening weekend and the following weekend.Similar to the US opening where many suggested dating was an issue as its opening was tied into its Chinese launch and the Chinese New Year rather than holiday slot as the first two films had been. But it held well in the weeks after release as it will likely do similarly in the UK. 

Kung Fu Panda opened July 2008 with £6.069m (including £2.96m in previews) total £19.6m

Kung Fu Panda 2 opened June 2011 with £6.19m (including previews of £3.12m) total £16.3m

Not including previews Kung Fu Panda 3 is up 6% from Kung Fu Panda 2 and up 26% on How to Train Your Dragon 2 (again not including previews)

Will face tough competition in two weeks with Zootropolis but both are likely to perform strongly throughout the two week Easter holidays and could get close to Kung Fu Panda 2 box office if the weather stays as it is over Easter holidays as there should be room for both films to do well. But they could be hit if rumours of the first heatwave of the year is true for Easter.

2. Divergent: Allegiant £1.83m – NE

Disappointing start for the third part of the four-part film series opening a week ahead of the US to avoid Zootropolis and Batman Vs Superman Dawn of Justice.

While the first two films benefited from the media coverage generated from a UK premiere the media coverage for Allegiant was muted in comparison.

The Divergent film series have underperformed in the UK opening in the shadows of much higher profile releases Divergent opened with £1.76m in March 2014 against competition of Rio 2 and Noah.

While Insurgent last March opened against Home with £2.93m (did benefit from 3D surcharges which the first film didn’t have) opening with 66% more than Divergent would have expected Allegiant to open better than the previous film as young adult film adaptations have done from Twilight, The Hunger Games and more recently The Maze Runner the first film opened September 2014 with £2.04m and the second last September with £2.76m as the films audience grew as the film series developed.

The fourth and final film has strangely been delayed to  in opens on June 9th 2017 against much tougher competition World War Z 2 and The Mummy (reboot starring Tom Cruise). Being switched for Power Rangers reboot which would probably be better suited for June date too?

3. London Has Fallen £1.8m – £6.44m

After 11 days London Has Fallen has overtaken Olympus Has Fallen despite negative reviews.

Held surprisingly well in its second weekend dropping only 33% (not including previews) and 43.6% including previews and after 11 days on release it had taken £4m.

In comparison Olympus Has Fallen dropped a massive 59% in its second weekend but it did face much tougher competition with Tony Stark and Iron Man 3.

London Has Fallen will face tougher competition this weekend with 10 Cloverfield Lane and likely to drop down the chart very quickly after.

4. Deadpool £962,257 – total £35.8m

After five weeks on release Deadpool is dropping down the charts with the arrival of the next comic-book adaption in two weeks has done way beyond anyone could have possibly expected the pressure is now on Batman Vs Superman do beat it.

Deadpool will overtake Iron Man 3’s £37m to become the fifth biggest superhero film of all time in the UK but it already has as didn’t benefit from 3D surcharges all other superhero films have benefited from.

Its fifth weekend box office is similar to last years Avengers: Age of Ultron £1,063,726 which had taken £44.9m with £13.1m from 3D inflating its box office by over £5m. This alongside the 15 certificate versus 15 the difference between the two films is not as much as it seems.

X-Men: Days of Future Past fifth weekend it took £564,143 with a total £25.79m.

To celebrate its Monthiversary Ryan Reynolds released Regenerate the Meowgic.

 

5. Hail Caesar! – £857,682 – total £3.24m

Dropping 42.9% in its second weekend but performed well during the week Hail Caesar! is performing similar to both No Country for Old Men which took £828,196 in its second weekend in 2008 £2,757,840 total and Birdman £826,316 with £2,992,266 total in 2015.

Hail Caesar! Will shortly overtake O Brother, Where Are Thou? Which took £3.32m in 2000 to become The Coen Brothers fifth biggest UK film but unlikely to get close to their biggest True Grit £8.46m

Holding better in the UK than US dating could be an issue as UK release date was a much quieter week for Hail Caesar! opening in the UK as opposed to US and whereas embargo broke only days before opening the strong reviews have been released for the past several weeks in the UK allowing buzz to generate after its European premiere at Berlin Film Festival similar to The Grand Budapest Hotel in 2014 which held far better in the weeks after opening than Hail Caesar! due to no competition.

Complete UK Box office top 10 – March 11^th – 13^th 2016

Also opened

50 Shades of Black -Vertigo – £82,614 from 117 screens

The Ones Below – Icon – £6,971 from 11 screens

Other box office news:

This weekend’s top 10 box office took £12,014,397 up 31.8% from last weekend £9,392,604 and up 106.6% from same weekend last year. (£5,796,695) when Run All Night £822,466, Suite Francaise £500,850 and X + Y £154,374. (which was one of the lowest weekends of the year). Easter is earlier this year and with the release of Zootropolis and Batman Vs Superman Dawn of Justice Easter films are brought forward.

This weekend last year Home £6,017,210. Divergent: Insurgent – £2,931,204, The Gunman – £405,432, Wild Card £152,034 and The Voices £118,170 opened.

US Box Office

1. Disney’s Zootopia – drops 33.4% – $50m – total $142.6m.

2. Paramount Pictures – 10 Cloverfield Lane opens with $25.2m; received B- CinemaScore its likely to be very front-loaded as Cloverfield.

3. 20^th Century Fox – Deadpool – drops 35.4% – $10.8m – total $328.1m

4. Focus Features – London Has Fallen – drops 50.7% – $10.6m – total $38.8m

5. Paramount Pictures – Whiskey Tango Foxtrot drops 38.3% – $4.6m – total $14.5m

6. Lionsgate – The Perfect Match opens with $4.1m

7. Focus Features – The Young Messiah opens with $3.4m

8. Sony Pictures – The Brothers Grimsby opens with $3.1m; receiving B+ CinemaScore will drop heavily next week.

9. Lionsgate – Gods of Egypt – drops 51.9% -$2.5m – $27.3m total.

10. Sony Pictures – Risen – down 42.4 – $2.2m – $32.3m total

Also opened

Alan Rickman’s final acting role opened on limited release after premièring last September at the Toronto Film Festival.

Eye in the Sky – Broad Street – $117,050 from 5 screens