Top 5 Breakdown

1. Conjuring 2 – £4,637,862- NE

 Monday openings artificially inflate a film’s opening weekend adding four days of previews to its opening weekend but often spreads out films box office over 7 days not really increasing it. Taking £1.86m Mon-Thurs and £2.78m Fri-Sun.

Seen recently with films like The Huntsman, Warcraft and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 and again with The Conjuring 2 as the first film opened with £2.1m in August 2013 taking £4.2m in its opening 7 days compared with £4.64m for 8 day opening weekend. Friday June 10^th/Mon- Thurs The Conjuring 2 took £1.86m compared with £1.42m for first film.

The Conjuring opened in 2013 with £2.16m taking £10.46m with its spinoff Annabelle in 2014 with £1.94m taking £7.51m.

While the original dropped only 25% in its second weekend the sequel will likely drop much heavier especially with the arrival of Independence Day: Resurgence. Even though reviews have been very good it dropped much more heavily in its second weekend than the first film.

In India a 65- year old man died watching The Conjuring 2 and then the body disappeared the story went viral online but now many think it was a marketing stunt.

In a summer of mega budget movies Conjuring 2 has done something that not many sequels have done received good reviews and opened better than previous films and receiving good word of mouth along the way.

Distributors have opted for Monday openings regularly recently mostly strangely for films that have received negative buzz and reviews are very front-loaded so while they might seem to open strongly they are often played out before their official Friday opening as seen recently with The Huntsman and Warcraft. But for a film such as The Conjuring 2 Monday opening gives the film a chance to build on word of mouth similar to talker screenings.

In a time when it seems only big budget franchises top the box office chart it’s good to see The Conjuring has created a series of successful low budget films and spin-offs Annabelle released in 2014 with sequel set for 2017 with spin-off to The Conjuring 2, The Nuns in development and The Conjuring 3 likely to be released in 2018. These films have a fraction of the budget of mega-movies while might not be the billion dollar earners are very lucrative and profitable for Warner Bros. The series of films has taken over $850m worldwide to date and with at least three more films upcoming will have taken over $1 billion for less than half the cost of Warcraft.

2. Me Before You – £979,126 – total £6,537,142

Down 32.6% in its third weekend holding surprisingly well as young adult adaptions have the tendency of opening big and being very front loaded. It is performing similar to The Fault in Our Stars which took £948,718 in its third weekend having taken £8.5m rather than the more recent The Longest Ride, Paper Towns and Me & Earl & the Dying Girl which failed to find audiences in the UK.

Despite the criticism the film received the book was a big seller in UK with a very attractive cast and soundtrack makes for a fun but teary eyed trip to the cinema and also helps being completely different to anything else showing.

But with Absolutely Fabulous out in two weeks will likely see it dropping quickly down the charts over the next few weeks.

3. Gods of Egypt £484,467 – NE

After being delayed several months eOne heavily promoted it despite the slating reviews it received opening in the US and similarly in the UK.

Charting third only due to the poor performance of the hold-overs but will be a one-weeker in the chart; its the lowest charting film in third place since May 2014.

4. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows – £438,885 – total £5,478,327

Dropping 48.6% in its third weekend still less than half of the originals £13.9m total box office. Just one of many sequels this year that has underwhelmed even though many of them have been surprisingly better than predecessors.

2016 s looking like a repeat of 1990 when there were many sequels and remakes most of which underperformed including Disney’s Dick Tracy which saw the then head of Disney Jeffrey Katzenberg write his infamous 28-page memo about the state of the industry. 25 years later no one has learnt anything with budgets more than tripled since and studios are still concentrating on the sequels, reboots and remakes with the added comic-book adaptions.

The difference in 1990 there were sleeper surprise hits Pretty Woman, Ghost and Home Alone which have become a rarity in recent years as films don’t get a chance to find their audiences as they are pulled within weeks. The memo was the inspiration to Cameron Crowe’s 1996 film Jerry Maguire.

5. Alice Through the Looking Glass £418,384 – total £8,982,310

Down 49.9% in its fourth weekend still far from matching its opening weekend box office. As with TMNT2 it was another of the unwanted unnecessary sequels but is just a minor blip to Disney with Finding Dory likely to perform strongly this summer and Pete’s Dragon from trailers looks like it could do too. Then of course the triple bill of Doctor Strange, Moana and Rogue One even with the issues of reshoots will still be a massive success.

Complete UK Box office top 10 – June 17^th – 19^th 2016

Also Released

Tale of Tales – Curzon – £119,310 from 74 screens

Barbershop 3: A Fresh Cut – Warner – £91,502 from 112 screens

The Keeping Room – Lionsgate – £26,199 from 18 screens

Other box office news:

This weekend’s top 10 box office took £8,589,370 up 19.5% from last weekend £7,187,384; 

Weekend was down 45.8% from same weekend last year (£15,864,188) when Take That Live £943,100, Mr Holmes £741,000, Entourage £603,000, The Longest Ride £418,086 opened.

Next weekend 2015: Minions – £11,556,856, Knock, Knock £250,825 and Slow West £140,858 opened.

US Box Office

1. Walt Disney – Finding Dory – opened with $136.1m the biggest ever opening for an animated film ahead of Shrek the Third’s $121.6m in 2007; 93.8% more than Finding Nemo; receive A CinemaScore. 

2. Warner Bros – Central Intelligence – opened with $34.5m slightly disappointing as was lower than Ride Along 2 $35.2m after getting decent reviews and A- CinemaScore many expected it to open $40m+.

3. Warner Bros – The Conjuring 2 – dropped 61.5% – $15.5m – $71.3m; drop was far more than first film which dropped 46.9% having taken $83.9m after 10 days.

4. Lionsgate – Now You See Me 2 – dropped 56.9% – $9.6m – $41.3m; more than the first film which dropped 35.1% having taken $60.9m after 10 days.

5. Universal Pictures – Warcraft – dropped 73% – $6.5m – $37.7m; while many are saying it is the highest grossing video game adaption the $200m from China artificial inflates its total. While it being produced by Legendary Pictures its classed as Chinese film so will keep more than the normal 20% rental it will still be far from the rentals Warcraft would receive from US but as it was financed by Legendary could still be profitable for Universal.  

6. 20^th Century Fox – X-Men: Apocalypse – dropped 47.5% – $5.2m – $146.1m; in comparison Days of Future Past had taken $206.2m after four weeks’ in 2014.

7. Paramount Pictures – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows – dropped 63.9% – $5.2m – $71.9m; in comparison TMNT had taken $145.5m after 3 weeks.

8. Warner Bros – Me Before You – dropped 54% – $4.1m – $46.3m.

9. Walt Disney – Alice Through the Looking Glass – dropped 36% – $3.6m –  $69.3m; in comparison Alice in Wonderland $293.5m after 4 weeks.

10. Walt Disney – Captain America: Civil War – down 46.8% – $2.2m – total $401.2m; the first film of 2016 to break through $400m barrier 54% more than previous Captain America: Winter Soldier but as its really Avengers 2.1 its still 12.6% down from Avengers: Age of Ultron.