Top 5 Breakdown
- The First Purge – £1,778,157 – NE
Boosted by two days of previews taking £618,396 gave The First Purge the biggest opening of the series to date.
Showing that despite the World Cup and the hot weather people still wanted to go to the cinema and do believe had a distributor released the right film as Universal Pictures and 20th Century Fox did in 2014 with Mrs. Brown’s Boys D’Movie and The Fault in Our Stars to quote Field of Dreams “people will come”.
June in recent years has regularly underperformed after having a strong May and then July has always thought that National Cinema Day should return which was hugely successful in 1996 and 1997 and was always amazed didn’t become a yearly event. Ireland still has a National Cinema Day in August. In 1996 June 2nd all cinemas were £1 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of cinema in the UK it helped to increase admissions dramatically those two years which has been much needed over recent years as hasn’t been any admission growth in the UK since 2002.
The World Cup and European Championships come every four years as does the hot weather from April, so distributors should have plenty of time to date films that could play to non-football fans.
In 2020 European Championships has several games played in the UK and after England’s success at this year’s World Cup will be much interest in 2020. While Qatar 2022 has different issues as its going to start mid-November to just before Christmas while distributors can open films earlier for summer World Cup much harder with Christmas.
The Purge opened May 31st, 2013 with £1,019,877 taking £3.36m
The Purge: Anarchy opened 25th July 2014 with £1,165,143 taking £4.43m
The Purge: Election Year opened 26th August 2016 with £807,803 taking £1.91m (was due for release on 15th July in the UK but was delayed 6 weeks only a couple of weeks before its release date).
As the previous films, The First Purge will be very front-loaded ever more so with Skyscraper opening this weekend.
- Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom – £1,318,104 – £36,810,689
Down only 34.75% in its fifth weekend taking 35.6% of Jurassic World;
As with many sequels, Fallen Kingdom is performing similarly to the week ahead of Jurassic World which took £1,136,220 in its sixth weekend taking £59,484,716. if Fallen Kingdom holds similar to Jurassic World would have taken 92.4% of its total box office
35.2% less than Jurassic World took in its fifth weekend which took £1,853,867 and £57,148,254 88.8% of £64,322,933 total;
While Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom opened two weeks early internationally to open ahead of the World Cup rival distributors didn’t open anything big afterwards which has seen Fallen Kingdom drop less than expected. But after opening lower than expected it will take about £20m less than I would have expected. But with Mamma Mia Here We Go Again opening in two weeks’ time which is likely to repeat the success of the original after England easily beating Sweden in the World Cup last weekend.
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is the fourth biggest film of the year after Avengers Infinity Wars, Black Panther and Peter Rabbit; in 2015 Jurassic World was the biggest film of the year until Spectre and Star Wars: The Force Awakens opened later in the year
Fallen Kingdom is the 74th biggest film in the UK between Captain America: Civil War and Iron Man 3 and is 11th biggest Universal Pictures film in the UK overtaking Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason and Love Actually this week.
Fallen Kingdom take about £41m 30%+ less than Jurassic World £64.32m in 2015 and 6% less of Jurassic Park and 61%+ than its inflation inflated £47.79m took in 1993. While Fallen Kingdom has overtaken The Lost World: Jurassic Park £25.79m total will also come short of its inflation inflated total £48.62m. The only inflation inflated Jurassic Park film it will overtake is the third film is seen as the worst film of the series it took £18.1m in 2001 which would be £33.54m.
Jurassic Park took 9.75x opening (£4.9m); The Lost World: Jurassic Park 4.53x (£5,700,000); Jurassic Park 3 3.8x (£4,762,155): Jurassic World 3.32x (£19,350,727): Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (£14,334,894) will be about 2.86x opening.
- Ocean’s Eight – £837,427 – £8,529,286
Down 34.7% on its third weekend which was a decent hold with the hot weather and the World Cup;
Third weekends
2002’s Ocean’s Eleven dropped 27% taking £2,623,689 and £15,632,782 of £24,877,642
2005’s Ocean’s Twelve dropped 38% taking £1,328,115 and £10,281,251 of £12,030,148
2007’s Ocean’s Thirteen dropped 34% taking £1,430,864 and £9,642,559 of £12,998,107
- Sicario: Day of the Soldado – £321,750 – £1,462,458
Down 53.93% in its second weekend 63.2% less than Sicario took in its second weekend which dropped 45% in its second weekend taking £877,236 and £3,341,737 going on to take £5,070,173.
- Tag – £250,517 – £1,063,855
Down 47.3% in its second weekend; while blockbusters take about 10% of their US box office in the UK with comedies normally take far less Tag is only 2.2% similar to recent Life of the Party 3.17%.
Last year Warner Bros released Fist Fight, Going in Style and The House 1£0.4m, £2.77m and £1.08m and Snatched took £1.95m. Earlier this year Game Night was more successful opening with £1.09m taking £4.63m showing that the comedy genre still has life in it.
The game of Tag is better known in the UK as It or British Bulldogs was banned from many British schools after an eight-year-old girl died after being knocked over in 2013. So, the film was always going to be a hard sell to UK audiences why it has performed far stronger in the US.
Upcoming comedies include Crazy Rich Asians, The Spy Who Dumped Me, Johnny English Strikes Back, Night School, Holmes and Watson and The Happytime Murders.
While New Line Cinema continue their mix of horrors (spinoffs from The Conjuring) and comedies with Isn’t It Romantic, Margie Claus and Superintelligence set for release next year. With 20th Century Fox being absorbed into Disney Warner Bros will be one of a few studios that continue to make low budget comedies which Netflix is also doing.
UK box office in detail
This weekend’s top 10 box office took £5,570,317 down 14.03% from last weekend £6,480,094;
Had the lowest top 10 weekend since October 11th-13th 2013 £5,181,549 (Prisoners #1 £968,990 and The Fifth Estate opened with £502,495) It was lower than the most recent lowest 16th-18th June 2017 £5,745,646 Wonder Woman #1 (third weekend) £1,868,607 with Churchill and Gifted opening. The weekend would have been much worse had it not been for the £618l The First Purge took in previews inflating its opening weekend.
Over recent years the weather has been used as an excuse for the poor box office as has been for the past three weeks the World Cup; but 6 years ago, The London Olympics opened July 2012 watched by over 27m but still The Dark Knight Rises took £7,275,558v in its second weekend and The Lorax opened with £1,853,294 and Ice Age: Continental Drift in its fifth weekend took £1,544,322. The issue was more a lack of content with studios running scared of the World Cup.
The weekend admissions 753,551 down 10.8% from last weekend 844,862; 2018 average ticket price is probably up about 3% from last year’s £7.49 to £7.67 for 2018;
17 films opened at weekend taking £2,358,218; The First Purge 75.4% (£1,778,157); remaining 16 films shared 24.59% (£580,061):
The weekend was down 68.37% from last year (£17,613,700); Spider-Man: Homecoming £9,369,846; It Comes at Night £226,688;
Down 65.83% from 2016: (£16,304,545); The Legend of Tarzan £3,570,350; Now You See Me 2 £2,964,641; The Neon Demon £126,996; Maggie’s Plan £102,534
Down 64.37% from 2015; (£15,633,889); Terminator: Genisys £3,793,617; Magic Mike XXL £1,575,092; Amy £523,192;
Down 3.88% from 2014: (£5,795,536); Tammy £471,429; The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed out the Window and Disappeared £102,570;
Down 47.515% from 2013: (£10,613,251); Now You See Me £2,898,997; The Internship £1,248,431; The Bling Ring £141,425;
Down 60.83% from 2012 (£14,221,408); The Amazing Spider-Man £11,091,972; Katy Perry: Part of Me £449,491;
Down 46.01% from 2011 (£10,318,687): The Guard £473,878; The Tree of Life £406,062
Down 74.31% from 2010: (£21,686,365): The Twilight Saga: Eclipse £13,756,653; Predators £2,203,193;
Down 33.7% from 2009 (£15,513,026); Ice Age III £7,639,884; Public Enemies £2,228,291;
Down 64.1% from 2008 (£20,154,893); Hancock £9,589,095; Kung Fu Panda £6,069,679; The Mist £157,394
Down 54.36% from 2007 (£12,207,040); Die Hard 4.0 £5,004,916; Dead Silence £22,580
Down 68.26% from 2006; (£17,550,776) Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man’s Chest E13,740,784; District 13 £98,747
Down 16.1% from 2005 (£6,632,112); The Descent £570,850;
Down 55.91x% from 2004 (£12,636,832): Around the World in 80 Days £1,631,963; Fahrenheit 9/11 £1,304,115
Down 37.26% from 2003 (£8,411,961); Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle £3,273,078
Up 18.24% from 2002 (£8,034,538): The Minority Report £4,506,315; Spirit: Stallion of Cimarron £719,681
Next weekend in 2017: (£19,205,602): War for the Planet of the Apes £7,195,773; Cars 3 £2,625,000; The Beguiled £414,924;
Also opened
- Whitney – Altitude
Opened with £143,000 from 227 screens
Its opening was bigger than Nick Broomfield’s Whitney Houston Whitney Can I be Me, which opened to £94,613 in June 2017 from only 60 screens (June 16th-18th 2017 was the previous lowest top 10 weekend taking £5,745,646 but this weekend was lowest since 11th-13th October 2013).
Music documentary Amy opened in 2015 with £523,192 taking £3.8m; while Kevin Macdonald previously directed documentaries Marley in 2012 opened 20th April with £203,062 from 64 screens taking £943,917 and Touching the Void opened with £115,332 from 29 screens in December 2003 taking £1,489,421
He also directed 2006’s The Last King of Scotland opened with £861,991 taking £5,301,931 and 2009’s State of Play opened with £1,513,951 taking £5,405,100
- Uncle Drew – Lionsgate
Opened with £151,337 from 275 screens; the basketball comedy had a decent opening in the US, but American sports films rarely find an audience in the UK the most successful basketball film was 1997’s Space Jam taking £11.64m as Uncle Drew Space Jam started life as a TV advert for Nike Uncle Drew was based o a Pepsi TV advert character launched in 2012.
- Swimming with Men – Vertigo
Opened with £70,736 from 136 screens; the film closed the Edinburgh International Film Festival earlier this month being compared to The Full Monty received mixed reviews. Was surprised the film didn’t have a wider release opening over a quiet weekend opening in only half the screens of Uncle Drew and quarter of screens Patrick opened last weekend.
Other News (first 6 months)
First 6 months of 2018 took £650m up 11.93% (396 releases) from £580.69m last year; top 10 films Avengers Infinity Wars, Black Panther, Peter Rabbit, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, The Greatest Showman, Deadpool 2, Darkest Hour, Star Wars Solo, Coco and Fifty Shades Freed took £341.64m 50.96% of 2018 BO; top 20 took £462.37m 68.97%.
Disney took 46.35% of the top 10 to add 20th Century Fox box office combined Disney would be 65.57% and 53.9% of the top 30 box office.
Admissions were up 21% in May with the year tracking at the highest level since 2002; Avengers: Infinity War and Deadpool 2 were the two films that helped May admissions increase to 13.72m up from 11.34m in May 2017 and the best May result since 2013 15.61m when Star Trek Into Darkness and Fast & Furious 6 opened. But June saw a big drop seeing box office now 2% down from last year.
Last year UK Cinema Association made a similar announcement in August when UK cinema admissions were 102m by the end of July up 6.6% from the same period in 2016 and the best since 2009 when 103.5m tickets were sold. But then box office dropped off later in the year as June 2018 is unlikely to get anywhere near 2002’s 12,211,024 while Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom has performed well the rest of June releases have been poor.
From July-December 2017 there were 11 films that took over £20m; Star Wars: The Last Jedi £82.65m; Dunkirk £56.75m; Despicable Me 3 £47.70m; Paddington 2 £42.64m; It £32.34m; Thor: Ragnarok £30.93m; Spider-Man Homecoming £30.48m; Kingsman: The Golden Circle £24.88m; Murder on the Orient Express £24.18m; Wonder Woman £22.18m; War for the Planet of the Apes £20.76m taking over £400m combined.
While this year from July-December Incredibles 2, Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again, Mission: Impossible Fallout, Hotel Transylvania 3, Ant-Man and the Wasp, Johnny English 3, The Grinch, Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them 2, Wreck-It-Ralph 2 and Mary Poppins Returns likely to take £20m+ each and £340m+ combined. A Star Is Born, Bohemian Rhapsody, First Man and Holmes and Watson are the films that could surprise.
My estimate 2018 box office would be roughly £1.2bn close to 2017 total of £1.277bn
UK Box Office Top 10
US Box office
- Ant-Man and the Wasp – Disney
Opens with $75.81m; received 86% Rotten Tomatoes score (similar to the 82% Ant-Man received) and A- CinemaScore; 2015’s Ant-Man received A CinemaScore.
A month ago, Ant-Man and the Wasp was tracking to open with $75m but after taking $11.5m on Thursday previews and $33.8m on Friday saw many expect it to open with $85m+.
Thursday midnights was higher than Ant-Man $6.4m; Doctor Strange $9.4m; Guardians of the Galaxy $11.2m and Warner Bros Wonder Woman $11m.So why didn’t it open as big as any of them?
Its opening was 33% bigger than 2015’s Ant-Man opening with $57.2m which is similar to the increase between 2011’s Thor and 2013’s Thor: The Dark World (31%) and 2008’s Iron Man and 2010’s Iron Man 2 (30%) but much less than between 2011’s Captain America: The First Avenger and 2014’s Captain America: Winter Soldier (46%).
But the popularity of comic-book films dramatically increased after the release of Avengers in 2012 which was the reason for the big increase from Captain America: The First Avenger to Captain America: Winter Soldier. It also included some of Avengers characters expanding the storyline as most Marvel films have done since.
2015’s Ant-Man as Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 1 opening a year earlier were much more enjoyable Marvel Cinematic Universe films having much more humour while Ant-Man was much more family based as Scott Lang is doing it for his daughter rather than being rich and arrogant and doing it for their egos as most of the other Avengers. Which made the film feel much more like a Disney family film Honey< I Shrunk the Kids rather than a Marvel film but the film was sold as a Marvel film with the generic trailers, but the Japanese trailer highlighted the family aspect.
After Black Panther opened with $201.97m and Avengers: Infinity War with $258.18m Ant-Man and the Wasp opening could be seen as disappointing as its also the first MCU since Doctor Strange to open with under $100m. But Ant-Man like Doctor Strange is far less well-known Marvel characters while the same could have been said about Black Panther it became much more than just a comic-book film being seen as the first non-white comic-book movie (of course this isn’t true as Blade was that 204 years earlier).
The 20 Marvel Cinematic Universe films have taken $6.72bn in the US and $17.05bn worldwide; Captain Marvel opens March 2019, Untitled Avengers 4 in May 2019 and Spider-Man: Far from Home in July 2019 with three more untitled MCU films set for release in 2020, 2021 and 2022. The 2020 Marvel films will likely see X-Men join the Avengers after Disney incorporate 20th Century Fox as a label within the studio as Marvel is currently.
Ant-Man and the Wasp is the latest MCU film to include the footage in the trailers that were either not in the end film or in the end credit scenes. Black Panther end credit scene was planned to be the end scene of the film, but it was then moved to the end credit scene. The end credit scenes also tie into events of Avengers: Infinity War after Thanos clicks his fingers. After The Wasp becomes the first female Marvel character in the film’s title it is then surprising she has the same fate as Spider-Man and Black Panther but all three will return.
Ant-Man and the Wasp opened with $85m from 41 territories (mostly Latin America, Asia and smaller European countries. Opens in the UK and many other larger European countries over the next few weeks. The World Cup is being used as an excuse for the delay in these countries but its more likely Disney want a bigger gap between Incredibles 2.
The opening was 45% bigger than Ant-Man, 28% more of Captain America: Winter Soldier and 24% more of Thor: The Dark World. In 2015 Ant-Man took $339m overseas with China taking $105m.
Ant-Man and the Wasp are expected to have the last big opening of the summer with Mission Impossible Fallout expected to open with $60m in three weeks’ time. Early reactions have been very positive has its premiere in Paris next week without an embargo.
- Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom – Universal Pictures
Down 53% in its third weekend taking $28.63m and $333.39m; 55th biggest film in the US between Guardians of the Galaxy and Alice in Wonderland.
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom had the 48th biggest third weekend less than $1m more than Jurassic Park took in its third weekend 25 years ago; Jurassic World has the sixth biggest third weekend.
Fallen Kingdom had the worst third-weekend drop of the franchise even bigger than 2001’s Jurassic Park 3 seen as the worst film of the franchise (46.5%)
2015’s Jurassic World took $54.53m down 48.8% taking $500.37m of $652.27m total
2001’s Jurassic Park 3 took $12.27m down 45.6% taking $147.01m of $181.17 total
1997’s The Lost World: Jurassic Park took $18.56m down 45.6% taking $171.1m of $229.08m total
1993’s Jurassic Park took $27.69m down 28% taking $171.09m of $357.06m
(for The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park ticket inflation is more than 100% since so their totals need to be more than doubled which does highlight how Fallen Kingdom really performed).
Jurassic Park had the best second weekend of 1993; The Lost World: Jurassic Park was second behind Men in Black $19.02m. Jurassic World also had the second biggest third weekend in 2015 behind Star Wars: The Force Awakens $90.24m.
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom took $27.6m from 68 territories (including $250.4m from China; Jurassic World opened with $99.15m taking $228.74m) and $725.3m total and $1.058bn worldwide.
Fallen Kingdom is the 25th biggest film worldwide between Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest and is the third film this year to take over $1bn worldwide but helped with a quarter coming from China. Its likely to end with about $1.15bn which will be 31% less than Jurassic World in 2015 with Chinese box office again being responsible for a film taking over $1bn globally. But Chinese rental will be $50m+ and its release saw pirate copies online ahead of its US release.
25 years ago, Jurassic Park took $1.029bn
- Incredibles 2 – Disney
Down 38.8% in its fourth weekend taking $28.4m and $503.76m; #11 biggest film in the US between Beauty and the Beast and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Incredibles 2 has overtaking Finding Dory to be the biggest animated film in the US (until Toy Story 4 next year)
2004’s Incredibles took $261.44m was then fifth biggest animated film after Shrek 2, Finding Nemo, Monsters Inc and Shrek, so, the success of Incredibles 2 14 years later shouldn’t have been a surprise especially after Finding Dory became the biggest animated film in the US 13 years after Finding Nemo.
Had the seventh biggest fourth weekend after Avatar, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Black Panther, Marvel’s The Avengers, Avengers: Infinity War and Jurassic World.
The Incredibles dropped only 11.1% in its fourth weekend taking $23.58m and $214.29m 81.96% of its $261.44m total;
In 2003 Finding Nemo dropped 25.5% in its third weekend taking $21.13m and $228.54m of $339.71m total ($516.05m inflation inflated total); In 2016 Finding Dory dropped 50.02% taking $20.81m in its fourth weekend taking $423.04m of $386.29
Internationally took $35.7m from 39 territories and $268.4m total (with many major territories still to open over the next few weeks as it was held back to open at the start of the summer holidays and not because of the World Cup as many believe) and $772.27m globally (#84 biggest film worldwide between 2012 and Guardians of the Galaxy) globally overtaking the original’s $633m 2004 global total; It’s the 10th Pixar film to take over $600m worldwide
- The First Purge – Universal Pictures
Opens with $17.37m and $31.28m after five days: received 52% Rotten Tomatoes score and B- CinemaScore
Opened close to previous Purge films
The Purge opened July 2013 with $34.05m taking $64.47m
The Purge: Anarchy opened July 2014 $29.81m taking $71.96m
The Purge: Election Year opened July 2016 with $31.51m taking $79.21m.
The film has 92 million followers across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube views. The First Purge trailer, released in April, has been viewed over 50m times.
The First Purge took $10.9m internationally from 26 territories
- Sicario 2: Soldado – Sony Pictures
Dropped 59,9% in its second weekend taking $7.62m and $35.62m
While the original film was review led with a platform release the sequel is very much an action film saw it drop heavily in its second weekend after receiving mixed reviews and mixed word of mouth. Will still likely get close to the total box office of the original just being much more front-loaded.
Took $3.8m from 63 territories being released by Sony and Lionsgate $15.5m total
- Ocean’s Eight – Warner Bros
Down 39.2% in its fifth weekend taking $5.06m and $126.53m #474 biggest film in the US between Prometheus and Bee Movie.
Ocean’s Eight is currently ahead of Ocean’s Twelve and Ocean’s Thirteen performing far stronger in the US than internationally.
2001’s Ocean’s Eleven down 34.6% taking $11.05m and $151.96m of $183.41m
2004’s Ocean’s Twelve down 43.7% taking $5.1m and $119.94m of $112.54m
Ocean’s Thirteen dropped 42.1% taking $3.52m and $109.14m of $117.15m
Ocean’s Eight took $7.7m internationally and $110.1m total and $236.9m worldwide; Ocean’s Eleven took $450.71m, Ocean’s Twelve $362.74m and Ocean’s Thirteen $311.31m globally.
UK Box Office Predictions
After having the lowest weekend of the year (£5,570,317) and the lowest since October 11th-13th 2013 (£5,813,535) the arrival of Incredibles 2 and Skyscraper will see box office come back to levels pre the World Cup. But if England were to get to the final on Sunday it will likely impact on the openings of both of them. If they fail to get to the final they will play the Third-place playoff match on Saturday which despite being an anti-climax will likely be seen by over 20m. The hot weather also continues over the weekend with temperatures in the 80s.
Five years ago, Monsters University 12th July opening was affected with the hot sunny weather which saw it open with £3,463,917 (it held strongly playing throughout the summer taking £29,768,407)
Two years ago, Finding Dory opened with £8,122,075 taking £42,604,905 but Incredibles 2 could play more like Despicable Me sequel; Despicable Me 2 opened with £14,822,427 (including £4,868,323 previews); Despicable Me 2 opened with £11,154,904 and Minions £11,558,946. But all three films had no big films opening against it but Incredibles 2 opens against Skyscraper starring Dwyane Johnson both films are targetting similar young male audience who will be watching the football.
Makes this weekend a hard one to judge as several months ago thought Incredibles 2 could open with £12m+ but that has dropped to about £9m in recent weeks with Skyscraper opening with £4m; unlike most animated films Incredibles 2 (and Hotel Transylvania 3 opening in two weeks’ time) don’t have weekend previews to inflate their openings. With Mission Impossible: Fallout opening in two weeks’ time Universal Pictures had to open Skyscraper this weekend.
Opening in the UK
- Incredibles 2 – Disney
Sequel to the 2004 animated superhero film The Incredibles featuring the voices of Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Sarah Vowell, Samuel L. Jackson, Catherine Keener, Sophia Bush and Isabella Rossellini and directed by Brad Bird; has received 94% Rotten Tomatoes score.
In a May 2013 interview, Brad Bird spoke of his interest in making a sequel, a year later Bob Iger said Pixar was developing a sequel which Brad Bird was writing and would be his next film after 2015’s Tomorrowland.
When the first Incredibles was released in 2004 was several years before Marvel Cinematic Universe and comic-book films were limited to X-Men and Spider-Man films. While the only sequel Disney released was The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement with four out of their five biggest films original The Incredibles, National Treasure, The Village and Ladder 49.
Was originally set for release in June 2019 but in October 2016 it was brought forward to 2018 after Toy Story 4 production was behind schedule.
The first teaser premiered on November 18, 2017, received 113 million views in its first 24 hours becoming the most viewed trailer for an animated film, and the 7th most-viewed trailer. The trailer was released on April 13th.
The 19 Pixar film has taken over £560m over the last 22 years with an average box office is £29.6m; Pixar was always seen as a studio of originality but in the last five years have released seven films four of them were sequels, with Toy Story 4 released next summer it won’t be until March 2020 until they release another original animated film.
Incredibles opened in November 2004 with £9,753,035 including £3,493,896 from preview taking £32,039,321; its inflation inflated opening would be £16,660,530 taking £54,494,399
The Incredibles is currently 96th biggest film in the UK but 55th biggest inflation inflated £54,494,399.
- Skyscraper – Universal Pictures
Action film starring Dwayne Johnson, Neve Campbell, Chin Han, Byron Mann, Hannah Quinlivan, and Noah Taylor and written and directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber.
Skyscraper is a Die-Hard remake and critics have described it as stupid and silly which the trailers were but Dwyane Johnson knows the film is stupid which makes the film enjoyable to watch if completely forgettable like San Andreas and Rampage. This was similarly the case for Central Intelligence (also directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber) and Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle.
Critics have highlighted a scene in Skyscraper were Dwayne Johnson crawls across the building, using only duct tape wrapped around his hands. “This is stupid,” he sighs, summing up the film.
In the trailers Dwyane Johnson jumps from a crane to the building generated much discussion over if he could possibly survive with the jump, mathematicians have calculated he would have had to be running at 23mph to do the jump as Usain Bolt runs 27.8 mph it is technically possible but still highly unlikely. But the trailer did its job as it got people talking about it generating much social media coverage and while many might question the logic others will say it’s the Rock, of course, its possible.
Die Hard opened February 1989 with £612,125 taking 2,975,086; Die Hard 2: Fie Harder opened with £1,982,023 in August 1992 taking £5,536,813; Die Hard with a Vengeance opened August 1995 with £3,279,180 taking £10,183,239
Skyscraper has tough competition over the weekend with Incredibles 2 opening against and the World Cup final which England could still be in as this is written a day before their Semi-Final match along with the continued hot sunny weather; an opening similar to Rampage £4,109,247 (including £953,659 from previews) and 2015’s San Andreas opened with £4,628,394 (including £740,464 from previews) is likely but with Mission Impossible: Fallout opening in two weeks will likely be front-loaded.
It is surprising given that Dwayne Johnson’s target audience for recent films has been male tweens/teens that Skyscraper opens against Incredibles 2 as would is targetting similar demographic but had a far bigger in-build fanbase being a sequel.
2016’s Central Intelligence opened with £3,050,261 (including £775,122 previews) taking £8,459,045
2017’s Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle opened with £8,154,548 (including £4,114,058 previews) taking £36,968,605
- The Secret of Marrowbone – eOne
English-language Spanish horror-thriller starring George MacKay, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Heaton, Mia Goth, Matthew Stagg, Kyle Soller, Nicola Harrison and Tom Fisher and directed by Sergio G. Sánchez (wrote screenplay for The Orphanage); premiere last year at Toronto International Film Festival receiving positive reviews and was released in Spain in October 2017 and was released on VOD in the US in April.
Opening in the US
- Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation – Sony Pictures
The third part of the Hotel Transylvania franchise and sequel to 2015’s Hotel Transylvania 2 featuring the voices of Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, Selena Gomez, Kevin James, David Spade, Steve Buscemi, Keegan-Michael Key, Molly Shannon and Mel Brooks and directed by Genndy Tartakovsky.
Premiered at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival in France on June 13 opened in New Zealand and Australia in June at the start of their summer holidays; received mixed reviews saying while children will enjoy it has lost its originality which is often the case with sequel as they prefer to remake what came before rather than build on previous films.
Adam Sandler has become better known for voicing Hotel Transylvania in recent years along with making films for Netflix after signing a four-picture deal with Netflix in 2014 (the films have been terrible, but Netflix have been watched a lot). His production company Happy Madison Productions have been based at Sony Pictures for almost 20 years making over 30 films including Click, You Don’t Mess with the Zohan, Jack and Jill and 50 First Dates. Happy Madison Productions is probably now better known now for TV making show The Goldbergs.
The first two Hotel Transylvania films as their title suggested opened ahead of Halloween which is far quieter time for family films and far less competitive. Incredibles 2 will be on its sixth week of release but is still holding strong, but Sony Pictures have had a knack of release films like Pixels and The Emoji Movie mid-summer that have performed well.
Hotel Transylvania was tracking to opened mid-June with $40-45m which would be close to 2012’s Hotel Transylvania $42.5m taking $148.3m and 2015’s Hotel Transylvania 2 $48.56m taking $169.7m. The first film took $358 million at the worldwide and the sequel $473 million worldwide.
On June 30th Amazon Prime hosted exclusive preview screenings in about 1,000 screens across the US (taking $1.3m) they also did with Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle last December.
The first teaser trailer was released online on November 2017; official trailer released in March 2018 and a 95sec sneak peek was released on Sony’s YouTube channel in May.
Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation is the fifteenth animated film made by Sony Pictures Animation launched in 2002; In February released Peter Rabbit and in December Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
Was originally set for release on September 21, 2018, but was pushed forward two months in February 2017
- Skyscraper – Universal Pictures
Opening almost 30 years to the day Die Hard opened in the US Skyscraper is of course as near as you can get to remake without calling it Die Hard; it is expected to open between $32-40m similar to Rampage $35.7m rather than $54.58m opening of San Andreas. But will likely open far bigger in China when it opens the following week.
This time it’s a Chinese skyscraper it is produced by Legendary Pictures and was partly filmed in China which will surely see it could as a Chinese film which would mean Universal Pictures will get far more than the normal 20% rental most films receive.
It is the second film Rawson Marshall Thurber has directed starring Dwayne Johnson the first was 2016’s Central Intelligence opened with $35.53m taking $127.44m and $217m worldwide (while being a success in the US it underperformed internationally while Baywatch a year later did the opposite). Their third film together was acquired by Universal Pictures Red Notice has been dated for June 2020.
Sony Pictures recently announced December 13th, 2019 release date for Jumanji 2 after the first film took almost $1bn worldwide despite opening a week after Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
Dwayne Johnson most recently starred in Rampage which took $420m worldwide taking far more internationally than the US as Dwayne Johnson predicted when he defended the film’s success after some said the film had a disappointing opening.