Top 5 Breakdown

1. Peter Rabbit – £4,595,239 – £13,639,087

Down 36.8% in its second weekend holding strongly ahead of Easter holidays starting on Thursday; last year there were three big animated films opened for Easter with The Boss Baby taking £29.11m, The Smurfs: The Lost Village taking £6.01m and Peppa Pig: My First Cinema Experience taking £3.62m.
This year Peter Rabbit is the main one there is also Duck Duck Goose which will have limited appeal and while Isle of Dogs is stop-motion animation its target audience is much older which will see Peter Rabbit likely to more than double its box office over the lucrative Easter holidays.
Other British sourced children’s second-weekend drops
2017’s Paddington 2 – dropped 20% taking £6,612,699 and £16,893,580 (39.6%) of total £42,614,170
2016’s The BFG – dropped 37% taking £3,362,699 and £14,478,457 (47.4%) of total £30,514,629
2014’s Paddington – dropped 25% taking £3,837,885 and £10,332,911 (27.4%) of total £37,608,112
20005’s The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – dropped 46% taking £4,798,576 and £17,204,598 (39.4% of its £43,641,024
2005’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – dropped 44% taking £4,441,851 and £19,422,510 (51.9%) of its £37,354,584
2005’s Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit – dropped 29% taking £4,666,723 and £16,688,112 (52.2%) of its £31,956,705
2005’s Nanny McPhee – dropped 18% taking £3,079,722 and £9,828,104 (59.8%) of its £16,428,714
Strange coincidence that four huge children’s classics Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Nanny McPhee and The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe all opened within months of themselves in 2005 but chances are as the later three were trailer with the first film as what normally happens success breeds success as the trailer for Peter Rabbit was shown with Paddington 2.
While Peter Rabbit dropped close to The BFG it can’t be compared directly to Peter Rabbit was limited to weekend box office while The BFG opened at the start of the summer holidays.
The one classic British younger children’s film missing from the list is Winnie the Pooh Disney released a low budget animated film in 2011 which took only £504,076 at the box office but will release their reimagination Christopher Robin in August last year Fox Searchlight released Goodbye Christopher Robin telling the story of A. A. Milne.
Another animal-based animated children’s films second weekends
1999’s Stuart Little – dropped 27% taking £1,398,922 and £6,436,379 (37%) of its £17,392,023
2016’s Zootropolis – dropped 24% taking £2,734,493 and £12,597,202 (54.4%) of its £23,144,354
2016’s The Angry Birds Movie – dropped 6% taking £2,012,663 and £4,551,420 (45.8%) of its £9,929,464
2011’s Hop dropped 56% taking £611,367 and £2,623,612 (35%) of its £7,479,597
2007’s Charlotte’s Web – increased 0.5% taking £1,895,160 and £6,192,820 (58.4%) of its £10,593,589
Rabbits are of course very popular at Easter and Sony have a big promotion in the UK with Easter eggs and have been many successful children’s films featuring them over the years including the already mentioned Zootropolis, Hop, Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and also Who Framed Roger Rabbit (celebrating its 30^th anniversary this year) and Watership Down (Channel 5 has screened over Easter over the last few years always generates much social media coverage the BBC and Netflix are currently making a new version expected to be shown at Christmas). Have been other films that featured a rabbit which is anything but children’s films Donnie Darko and Fatal Attraction (saw the film when I was 14 my first ever 18 movie and that scene still terrifies me over 30 years later).
As Zootropolis opened at the start of the Easter holidays in 2016 its third weekend was in the middle of the holidays so is relatable to Peter Rabbit’s third weekend it took £2,365,457 down 14% taking £18,607,656 as Friday is Bank Holiday and the weather is expecting to be wet likely to drop less than 30% this weekend.
Last years The Boss Baby dropped 29% in its second weekend, not including previews with £3,619,765 and £16,733,174 (57.4%) of its total £29.11m Peter Rabbit is better positioned as The Boss Baby’s second weekend was the second weekend of the Easter holidays and with a weekend of previews was in its third week of release. While Peter Rabbit enters its third weekend with the Easter holidays ahead of it without any competition.
While Peter Rabbit the film might have more in common with The Emoji than to the classic books written by Beatrix Potter the book first published in the early 19^th Century sold millions her first look The Tale of Peter Rabbit has sold over 45 million copies. The books have been read by generations of parents to their children as Winnie the Pooh, Paddington, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Gruffalo over the decades since which has made the books part of our childhood and the books parents turn to read to their children.
Their popularity is seen by their performances at the UK box office with their adaptions including Paddington, The BFG, The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Borrowers, Matilda, The Jungle Book and Nanny McPhee all performed far stronger in the UK than anywhere else in the world.
After the success, Studiocanal had with Paddington films along with making a third film have turned to adapting several Enid Blyton books (sold over 600 million books worldwide in 2012 it was estimated one of her books was sold every minute in the UK) including Magic Faraway Tree and The Famous Five
To adults, Peter Rabbit looks like another The Emoji Movie or The Angry Birds Movie but is based on a beloved children’s book they read to their children but to their children the film is perfect. But the best family films work on two levels for children and adults which Disney and Pixar do always with their films and often Dreamworks Animation with last years The Boss Baby and Captain Underpants parents were laughing more than the children. While with a film like Peter Rabbit as The Emoji Movie they are solely there to carry the popcorn.

2. Pacific Rim: Uprising – £1,655,186 – NE

Pacific Rim opened in July 2013 with £2.19m opening third behind Monsters University and Despicable Me 2 taking only £8.5m.
Pacific Rim dropped only 39% in its second weekend taking £1,332,877 and £5,163,564 but didn’t face a huge Kaiju in its second weekend as the sequel has with Ready Player One instead had The World’s End opening with £2,123,576 and The Wolverine opening with £4,694,092 the following weekend.
Pacific Rim: Uprising while it could be said is more enjoyable than the first film as it doesn’t outstay it’s welcome being a much tighter length is still not a great film and instantly forgettable as soon as you walk out of the cinema so will likely drop 50%+ in its second weekend.
Pacific Rim: Uprising is John Boyega’s first major film since starring in The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi having previously starred in The Circle and Detroit which both flopped while Daisy Ridley has already had success in the ensemble Murder on the Orient Express.
Robots fighting each other was done surprisingly well in the underrated Real Steel (Real opened October 2011 with £1,337,491 taking £4,498,419) but unfortunately in Pacific Rim: Uprising with robots fighting Kaiju feels more like watching Transformers fighting each other do hope Warner Bros learn from this in Godzilla Vs Kong in 2020 as the problem with these films with huge monsters fighting each other it’s easy to lose touch with the human element.

3. Black Panther – £1,308,281 – £44,892,064

Down 28.26% in its sixth weekend; Black Panther has now overtaken all solo Marvel Cinematic Universe films and will likely take about £47m about £1m less than Avengers: Age of Ultron.
But after the massive coverage Black Panther received about its diversity it was always likely to play beyond the normal comic-book fan audience which is why it has affected other films that have been released after it but not to the same effect as it has done so in the US.
Most comic-book films as many mainstream blockbusters will take between 8%-15% of their US box office in the UK. Black Panther will only take about 7% highlighting how the film has performed far stronger in the US than the UK saying that Black Panther took about a third more than most would have predicted pre-release with it expected to take similar to Captain America: Civil War £36m which was the film that introduced Black Panther character and the start of the story arc that has continued over the films since and ends next year with Spider-Man: Homecoming 2.

Only Avengers: Age of Ultron took £883,790 in its sixth weekend taking £47,144,213 and Avengers Assemble took £847,598 in its sixth weekend taking £48,367,585

4. Tomb Raider – £1,186,436 – £5,472,541

Down 64.31% in its second weekend with the arrival of Pacific Rim: Uprising was always likely to drop heavily as it will drop heavily against Ready Player One this weekend. The slight positive has overtaken the final box office of Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life £5.13m but that would be £8.87m today as average ticket prices in 2003 were £4.44 and this year are £7.67; while Lara Croft: Tomb Raider took £12.74m in 2001 would be £23.6m today
Rebooting a franchise is hard enough but rebooting a video game franchise 17 years later was always going to be a hard sell made even more difficult with the success of comic-book film adaptations over the last decade.
So, the big question will be how Ready Player One and Rampage will do in comparison while studios won’t give up on adapting video games. Nintendo has recently announced plans for an extended universe close to Marvel with Detective Pikachu opening next year and also an animated Super Mario Bros film upcoming both from Universal Pictures, Warner Bros release Minecraft, Paramount Sonic the Hedgehog and Sony The Angry Birds Movie 2.
Have had more success from films inspired by video games in recent years with Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Wreck-It Ralph, Edge of Tomorrow, Pixels, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and Ready Player One.

5. The Greatest Showman – £753,420 – £40,112,949

Down 29.23% in its thirteenth weekend holding in the top 5 for another week after the very poor opening of A Wrinkle in Time;
The Greatest Showman has taken over 81% (£32,523,309) of its £40,112,949 box office this year this compares to only 9% of Star Wars: The Last Jedi £82,675,627 box office.

It has currently taken 15.38 times its opening weekend its opening is only 6.42% of its final box office which is better than Avatar 10.98x and 9.11% and Titanic 14.26x and 7.01% but The Full Monty is still way ahead with 32.5x and only 3.08% of its opening. For most films opening weekend is about 35% and they will take about 3x opening.
The Greatest Showman has become 20^th Century Fox’s fifth biggest film in the UK moving ahead of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith with Avatar, Titanic, The Full Monty and Star Wars: The Phantom Menace now bigger; will also overtake Les Misérables £40,654,113 by next weekend.
While it is the fifth biggest 20^th Century Fox film by box office it would only be the tenth biggest by admissions showing how ticket inflation has had a major impact on box office over the last 20 years.
Showing how unique the Greatest Showman box office performance has been only Titanic 20 years ago took more than it in its 13^th weekend as fans of the film are watching the film as many times as their parents saw Titanic 20 years ago. While many films have of course taken far more than The Greatest Showman they have all taken it in far fewer weeks as few films these days will be playing wide after 6 weeks let alone 13 weeks.
In 1997 The Full Monty took £1m+ for 13 weeks ticket prices were over 90% cheaper than they are today as was the case the year later when Titanic was #1 for twelve weeks. Both films had a huge advantage over The Greatest Showman as bot received huge media coverage. The Full Monty opened on August Bank Holiday the weekend Princess Diana died and it was
The feel-good film cinemagoers turned too it was of course great fun. Remember being invited to a screening of it many months earlier at 20^th Century Fox hearing the plot about a group of male strippers almost put me off from seeing it. While of course when Titanic opened a few months later it was surrounded by huge media and marketing campaign. While The Greatest Showman was the runt of the Christmas releases opening Boxing day several days after Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and Pitch Perfect 3 which were meant to be the two films that teens would go for alongside Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
Of course, 20 years ago for Titanic, The Full Monty, Four Weddings and a Funeral and Jurassic Park it was a regular occurrence of films playing in cinemas for up to a year or more. Despite theatrical window now, only 3 months are very few films that will play wide for its whole theatrical release.
After 13 weeks
Titanic took £981,940 in April 1998 playing in 358 screens
Mamma Mia! took £479,057 in October 2008 in 387 screens
Avatar took £445,809 in March 2010 playing in 226 screens
Beauty and the Beast took £101,981 in June 2018 playing in 372 screens
Spectre took £69,043 in January 2016 from 92 screens
Paddington 2 took £64,471 in February 2018 in 210 screens
Star Wars: The Force Awakens took £47,203 in March 2016 from 96 screens
Dunkirk took £20,833 in October 2017 from 70 screens
Star Wars: The Last Jedi took £54 in March 2018 in 2 screens
Have been many articles written over the last few weeks about the strong performance of the film asking why the film has performed so strongly after receiving mixed reviews from critics. As I have said for months it is because the film does what it says on the tin like the famous Ronseal advert is a perfect popcorn film for the whole family doesn’t try too hard as La La Land did which was a critical darling but pretentious to many who saw it.
One of the main reasons why the film has been s successful and why many fans have created their own viral videos on YouTube singing the songs from the film as its about conquering your fears, standing up to prejudice but audiences fail to notice how horrible P.T. Barnum is as he says to the freaks “they’re laughing anyway, might as well be paid for it!

When I first saw the trailer in June it immediately reminded me of Moulin Rouge there was nothing new or original about the film but same could be said for feel-good films The Full Monty and Four Weddings and a Funeral, but it was different enough from the everything else that was released at Christmas another Star Wars movie, Jumanji and Pitch Perfect 3.
It was only when I saw the live advert that was broadcast a few days before its release I knew that if audiences could discover it would become a massive hit as the film wouldn’t be cinemagoers first choice as Daddy’s Home was two years earlier but during the lucrative Christmas holidays people will go to the cinema far more had it of opened as it originally was due to the first week of January it would have failed to find its audience.

Do believe part of the reason why critics were so mixed up about the film as they saw the film in early December, but embargo didn’t end till days before its release which allowed critics to overthink the film. As of course if you overthink The Greatest Showman you will find many faults to it but if you just watch it as cinemagoers have done reaction would have been much different.
The soundtrack is still breaking records it has now joined Adele’s 21 to become the longest running #1 album in the UK for the last 30 years selling more copies than the rest of the top five combined; has now sold 465,000 copies in the UK 42% physical purchases (197,000 copies), 23% digital downloads (107,000 copies) and 35% streaming; the last album to spend more consecutive week at #1 was Bob Marley’s 1984 legend album which was #1 for 12 weeks but it’s likely to lose #1 this weekend with the release of George Ezra’s new album.
In July Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again opens which looks very much like the original but if the first film took £68m why change it with Mary Poppins Returns and the Queen Biopic Bohemian Rhapsody both opening in November early buzz is very positive despite the director being replaced. The Lion King, Aladdin and Wicked are due for release next year and Steven Spielberg is rumoured to remake Guys and Dolls in 2020 after filming Indiana Junes 5.

20^th Century Fox announced on Monday were delaying the release of their latest X-Men film, Dark Phoenix from November to next February along with delaying the release again of New Mutants from March to August while bringing forward the release of Bohemian Rhapsody by 6 weeks to November 2^nd avoiding the clash with Mary Poppins Returns and opening days after Alita: Battle Angel.
Over the first six months of 2018 they will have released four films three of them in the first three months of the year Maze Runner: The Death Cure, Red Sparrow and Love, Simon and release five films over the last three months of the year The Predator, Bad Times at The El Royale, Bohemian Rhapsody, Widows and Alita: Battle Angel. (releasing only nine films in 2018 compared with fourteen last year).
20^th Century Fox 2018 slate is now surprisingly light with only Deadpool 2 their next release in May followed by The Darkest Minds in August asking if they are lightening their slate ahead of being acquired by Disney next year
Also released

• Disney – A Wrinkle in Time

Opened with £655,542 from 504 screens;
The film was always going to be a hard sell internationally which is why it made no sense to open the film three weeks after the US especially as March 9^th had no major releases. Delaying its opening by three weeks probably cost Disney £1m+ from its opening weekend as would have expected an opening close to Tomorrowland.
Holding back its release by three weeks allowed Disney to bring the cast over for its UK premiere on 13^th March but despite Reese Witherspoon and Oprah Winfrey attending as most premieres these days failed to generate much media coverage.
While Reese Witherspoon had huge success, last year producing and starring in HBO’s Big Little Lies her film career away from animated films has been disappointing since winning Best Actor for Walk the Line.
Highlighting how poor its opening was it was less than director Ava DuVernay’s previous film Selma which opened with £851,380 from 355 screens and took £2.6m in 2014.
2005’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was Disney’s last original film (based on a book) to open with more than £2m taking £3,298,262 in May 2005 and £10,563,392 and 2004’s The Village opened in August 2004 with £2,945,763
Disney’s last original film was Tomorrowland: The World Beyond opened with £1,481,336 in May 2015 with £4,971,372 taking £9,980,280.
Previous original films include
The Lone Ranger opened August 2013 with £1,342,196 taking £4,090,415;
John Carter opened March 2012 with £1,960,414 taking £4,504,680;
Real Steel opened October 2011 with £1,337,491 taking £4,498,419;
The Help opened October 2011 with £896,597 taking £3,865,125;
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time opened May 2010 with £1,371,066 taking £8,829,805;
Surrogates opened September 2010 with £961,271 taking £3,021,803
Wild Hogs opened April 2007 with £1,691,797 taking £5,915,252
Déjà Vu opened November 2006 with £1,098,295 taking £4,948,886
Disney is often heralded as marketing geniuses but for all their success over the last decade releasing properties haven’t had the similar success as their rivals from making films. So as Disney has done previously buying success from their rivals acquiring Marvel and Lucasfilm are doing the same acquiring 20th Century Fox which includes Fox Searchlight which will give them the original film successes and the Oscar winners one thing money can’t buy.
The reason why I am harder on Disney (than other studios) for doing this than any other studio is before they got into the comic-book business they were having huge success with original films made by Touchstone Pictures and still do with Disney Animation and Pixar most recently with Inside Out and Zootropolis.
But upcoming from both are mostly sequels over the next few years The Incredibles 2, Wreck-It Ralph 2 and Toy Story 4. Go back to 2004 when Disney last had an original live-action film success and they were still one of the biggest studios globally but The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement was the only sequel they released

• 20^th Century Fox – Unsane

Opens with £478,451 from 346 screens
What is a film today? Last week Steven Spielberg said films released on Netflix shouldn’t qualify for Oscars and Cannes Film Festival organisers banned Netflix films from premiering in competition that doesn’t get a theatrical release.
Unsane was shot on an iPhone 7 by Steven Soderbergh and was acquired by Regency Enterprises and released by 20^th Century Fox while Bong Joon-ho directed Okja sold his film to Netflix as his despite his previous film Snowpiercer received critical acclaim in 2013 received a very limited theatrically release internationally.
Why should Unsane be a film but Okja not as both should be films as it shouldn’t matter where they are launched far more than the widest possible audiences get the chance to see them. Had Regency Enterprises not had a distribution deal with 20^th Century Fox its unlikely it would have received such a wide theatrical release.
But probably only about 100,000 people will see Unsane at the cinema with home video and streaming is where most people will get to see the film.

• Sony Pictures – Proud Mary

Opens with £27,000 from 103 screens

• Secret Cinema – Blade Runner: The Final Cut

Opens with £349,492
Celebrating Secret Cinema’s 10^th anniversary they are showing Blade Runner for the next four months in West London.
As tickets from £45 up to £115 they are over 500% more than regular cinema ticket prices so as Event Cinema it can’t be compared to normal cinema but over the next 16 weeks it will be charting regularly at the bottom of the top 10 as March and April’s performances are already sold out with limited availability for May.
The next Secret Cinema event will run from 2 August to 2 September which has yet to be announced.
Over the last 10 years, Secret Cinema has done films including Moulin Rouge, Dirty Dancing, The Empire Strikes Back, 28 Days later, Back to the Future, Shawshank Redemption and Prometheus;
Last year’s Moulin Rouge opened with £197,000 for its weekend and £377,000 for the week taking £4.48m. This is seen as regular box office but for every person who goes to Secret Cinema, it adds 6 people to the admission figures for the year so as Event Cinema both help artificially inflate UK box office and admission figures.
UK box office in detail
This weekend’s top 10 box office took £11,575,591 down 25.5% from last weekend £15,554,372
The weekend admissions 1,471,404 down 26.8% from last weekend 2,011,385; as this is now 11th week of 2018 have increased by average ticket price by 2.34% the same as estimate increase in the US which would be £7.67 for 2018; 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%.
16 films opened at weekend taking £3,548,865; A Wrinkle in Time took 18.4% (£655,542) Pacific Rim: Uprising took 46.6% (£1,655,186); remaining 14 films shared 34.8% (£1,238,137): Peter Rabbit took 39.7% of the top 10.
The weekend was down 38.3% from last year (£18,777,727) Power Rangers £1,574,624, Life £743,281, The Lost City of Z £270,139, CHiPs: Law and Disorder £205,933, Idomeneo – Met Opera 2017 (Opera) £186,423,
Down 52.9% from 2016: (£24,577,822): Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice £14,621,007, Zootropolis £5,306,726, My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 £983,534, Capture the Flag
Next weekend in 2017: (£14,560,830) Ghost in the Shell £2,300,753, Smurfs: The Lost Village £1,383,059, Free Fire £480,644, Peter Kay’s Car Share: A Second Series Celebration £283,024, Madam Butterfly – Royal Opera, London 2016/17 (Opera) £65,810
The first 12 weeks of 2018
Taken about £300m with Black Panther taking 15% (£45m) The Greatest Showman £32.53m (2018 BO) Darkest Hour $23.54m, Coco £18.1m, Fifty Shades Freed $17.72m, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle £15.89m (2018 BO), Three Billboards £14.69m, Peter Rabbit £13.63m, Early Man £10.4m and The Post £9.1m; with Star Wars: The Last Jedi only 11^th taking £7.58m (2018 BO).
This compares to about £350m for the same period last year (very rough estimates) down about 15% from 2017 with last week of March and most of April until Avengers: Infinity War unlikely to match last year will be looking at Avengers: Infinity War, Deadpool 2 and Solo to bring 2018 closer to the levels of last year.
US Box Office Top 10

US Box office

• Universal Pictures – Pacific Rim Uprising

Opens with $28.11m; after receiving 45% Rotten Tomatoes score and B CinemaScore
While it might have taken Black Panther off #1 after 6 weeks the sequel opening was far from positive saying that after Pacific Rim opened with $37.28m in July 2013 taking $101.8m the sequel opened as expected as it was an unwanted unnecessary sequel for all except for Asia.
The first film directed by Guillermo del Toro had a budget of $190m while the sequel directed by Steven S. DeKnight had a budget of $150m.
The Ready Player One opening this weekend Pacific Rim Uprising will likely have a similar 55%+ second-weekend drop as Tomb Raider did this weekend in the US as films continue to suffer after the release of Black Panther which has cannibalized the box office from all the films that have released over the last six weeks.
The first film released by Warner Bros took only $101m in the US and $411m globally with almost half of this from Asia. The sequel made by Legendary Pictures owned by Chinese Wanda Group was almost fully financed by Legendary Pictures paying 90% of its $155m budget $35m less than the original with Universal 10%. As with Transformers: Age of Extinction China has a big influence on Pacific Rim: Uprising and Legendary Pictures will be hoping for similar sized box office Transformers: Age of Extinction took $222.74m in two weeks in China.
While the original film underwhelmed in the US it opened with $45m in China taking $112m with the sequel opening with $65m (up almost 45% compared with US being 33% down from the first film) close to Black Panther’s opening two weeks ago.
Opened taking $122.5m internationally and $150.3m worldwide

• Disney – Black Panther

Down 35.8% in its sixth weekend to $17.09m and $631.35m total;
It has overtaken Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Marvel’s Avengers to become the biggest comic-book movie in the US and will shortly overtake Jurassic World to become the fourth biggest film in the US and will likely also overtake Titanic.
Had the fourth biggest sixth weekend in the US after Avatar, Titanic and Frozen just ahead of The Sixth Sense, Mrs Doubtfire and Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. Star Wars: The Force Awakens in comparison was the #13 biggest taking $14.07m having taken $879.1m (94%) of its final box office of $936m if Black Panther holds similar will end on $671m.
Took $12.9m over the weekend internationally $606.4m total internationally and $1.237.3bn worldwide currently #12 biggest film globally and third biggest Marvel Cinematic Universe film internationally behind The Avengers and Avenger: Age of Ultron overtaking Iron Man 3 over the weekend.
Is the first MCU film since Iron Man 2 in 2010 to take less internationally compared to US;
Marvel Cinematic Universe films have taken almost $6bn in the US and $14.7bn over the last 10 years globally with Avengers: Infinity War opening next month with advance bookings already outselling Black Panther and is likely to take over $1.5bn+ globally.
Black Panther attracted many people who don’t do comic-book films as Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Avatar did with sci-fi the question is will these people come back to see Avengers: Infinity War too as Black Panther features or will it play just to comic-book fans?

• Paramount Pictures – Sherlock Gnomes

Opens with $10.6m; received B CinemaScore and only 19% Rotten Tomatoes
While the original was sweet and a surprise with Elton John music the sequel was a pointless unnecessary sequel that no one wanted (as Pacific Rim: Uprising) opening with less than 60% of Gnomeo & Juliet opened in February 2011 with $25,356,909 taking $99,967,670.
When Paramount Pictures lost Dreamworks Animation in 2011 they launched Paramount Animation with plans to release one animated film every year, but Sherlock Gnomes was their first film to be entirely animated previously made 2015’s The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water and 2016’s Monster Trucks.
Upcoming animated films include Amusement Park (early buzz is very positive) and Sonic the Hedgehog both set for release in 2019 and The Loud House Movie and The SpongeBob Movie sequel both set for release in 2020
It took $2.1m internationally with a total of $4.6m

• Warner Bros – Tomb Raider

Down 57.3% in its second weekend taking $10.1m taking $41.42m with mixed reviews and the arrival of Pacific Rim: Uprising this was expected; holding close to 2003’s Tomb Raider sequel.
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider dropped 47.9% in 2001 with $19.78m taking $83.82m
Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life dropped 58.6% in 2003 with $11.33m taking $42.59m.
Tomb Raider has been one of several films cannibalized by Black Panther opening six weeks ago while normally success breeds success Black Panther as Avatar and Titanic squeezed the box office from films opening after it. Has seen only two other films squeeze past $100m barrier this year Peter Rabbit last week and Fifty Shades Freed this weekend last year there were 7 (Beauty and the Beast, Logan, Get Out, Split, The Lego Batman Movie, Fifty Shades Darker, Kong: Skull Island).
Last year had 10 (Split, The LEGO Batman Movie, Fifty Shades Darker, John Wick: Chapter Two, Get Out, Logan, Kong: Skull Island, Beauty and the Beast, Power Rangers and The Boss Baby films opening with more than $30m in the first 12 weeks this year currently Fifty Shades Freed, Black Panther and A Wrinkle in Time and this weekend Ready Player One will also of opened with $30m+.
Took $34.1m internationally from 65 territories $170m internationally and $211.7m worldwide; Lara Croft: Tomb Raider took $274m globally in 2001 and Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life took $156m globally in 2003.

• 20^th Century Fox – Love, Simon

Down 35.3% in its second weekend with $7.6m taking $23.5m
Holding stronger than most young adult film adaptations due to strong word of mouth and strong social media coverage.

• Disney – A Wrinkle in Time

Down 49.5% in its third weekend taking $8.2m and $74.05m;
Holding better than Disney’s last original film The BFG which took $3.78m in its third weekend taking $47.37m of final of $55.48m and slightly better than 2015’s Tomorrowland which dropped 49.7% in its third weekend taking $7.2m and $76.41m going on to take $93.43m which is likely for A Wrinkle in Time.
2013’s The Lone Ranger dropped 61.9% taking $4.38m and $81.29m taking $89.3m
2012’s John Carter dropped 62.6% taking $5.07m and $62.4m taking $73.07m
2014’s Million Dollar Arm dropped 48.5% taking $3.58m and $27.98m taking $36.45m; in March at CinemaCon Disney’s Alan Horn said it as the highest tested film he has ever had at Warner Bros including Harry Potter and Disney but despite that still flopped.
For all of Disney’s success with Black Panther and all their other properties must be almost 15 years since Disney’s last original live action $100m+ budget film success 2004’s National Treasure. Before Disney moved fully into the properties business they had huge success making original adult films by Touchstone Pictures and Hollywood Pictures. In 2009 Dreamworks Pictures announced they would make six films a year that they would release through Disney from 2010 but only 13 films were released over six years including The Help, Real Steel, War Horse, Lincoln and Bridge of Spies.

• Sony Pictures – Paul, Apostle of Christ

Opened with $5.17m; received A- CinemaScore
Opening a week after I Can Only Imagine which dropped only 19.1% in its second weekend it’s the battle of the faith films ahead of Easter both films have a small budget under $5m and are likely to be highly profitable for the studios but faith films don’t perform well internationally.
They were meant to be joined with Mary Magdalene which has been caught up in the Weinstein Company bankruptcy being a film they didn’t want to sell to another studio.

• Open Road – Midnight Sun

Opened with $4.01m; received 21% Rotten Tomatoes score an A- CinemaScore.
Having been on the shelf for many months surprising to open the film a week after Love, Simon but as young adult audiences are very fickle young adult films often have a heavy drop in their second weekend but wasn’t the case with Love, Simon.
As with most young adult film adaptations, they get huge social media Midnight Sun has a reach of over 36m, but it has a similar plot to last year’s Everything, Everything and The Fault in our Stars, Walk to Remember and The Space Between Us (which also flopped).

• Bleecker Street – Unsane

Opened with $3.76m; Received 79% Rotten Tomatoes score and B- CinemaScore
Having Steven Soderbergh’s worst wide opening in the US opening almost half as much as 2002’s Solaris and last years Logan Lucky.
Opened on limited release

• Fox Searchlight – Isle of Dogs

Opened with $1.62m from 27 screens; received 93% Rotten Tomatoes score and A CinemaScore expands over the next two weeks before going wide in three weeks’ time
Hard to compare with his previous films as they opened in only 4 screens; had the best screen average of the year.
Fantastic Mr Fox opened with $265,900 from 4 screens in November 2009 before going wide after two weeks on limited release taking $6,965,267 and a total of $21,002,919.
The Grand Budapest Hotel opened March 2014 with $811,166 from 4 screens before slowly expanding over 6 weeks taking $4,069,245 in its widest expansion weekend taking $59,301,324.

Moonrise Kingdom opened in May 2012 with $522,996 from 4 screens slowly expanding over 8 weeks never expanding past 924 screens taking $45,512,466.
The Darjeeling Limited opened September 2007 with $134,938 from 2 screens again with a slow expansion over several weeks to a maximum of 698 screens taking $11,902,715.
The film has generated some controversy over some of its Japanese elements and the Japanese characters talk but is no subtitles for their dialogue.
Other box office news
The Greatest Showman has taken $170.94m (#266 biggest film in the US) becoming the third biggest musical in the US overtaking Chicago; it has taken $408.3m worldwide #260 overtaking Grease and Hone with the Wind
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle inches ever closer to becoming Sony Pictures biggest film in the US now taking $401.66m with Spider-Man taking $403.7m it overtook Frozen that the weekend but as its now available to download and lost over 500 screens at the weekend it might just come short; has taken $943.4m globally and opens in Japan in two weeks’ time.
MoviePass released data last week showing what were the top 27 films their 2 million subscribers have seen since August including 200,000+ Peter Rabbit, Tomb Raider, A Wrinkle in Time, Darkest Hour, Lady Bird; 300,000+ Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Justice League, Red Sparrow, Coco; 400,000+ Annihilation, The Post, Thor: Ragnarok, The Shape of Water; 500,000+ Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Game Night, The Greatest Showman; 750,000+ Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and more than 1 million tickets for Black Panther.
Opening UK
UK Box Office Predictions
Easter weekend is unlikely to match the box office levels of the last two years which is a week earlier than last year which saw The Boss Baby open with £8.02m and the following week with Furious 8 with £14.02m.
Easter was the same weekend this year in 2016 when Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice £14,621,007 and Zootropolis £5,306,726 opened but this year despite being directed by Steven Spielberg Ready Player One is unlikely to open close to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Opening on Wednesday with 3D screenings has a 5-day opening weekend two of those days school holidays could give it a 5-day opening of £8m+.
The bigger question is how Blockers and Isle of Dogs will do as Blockers is not as gross-out as most of the recent teen comedies it might not play as strongly as the films like Superbad but more like Bad Neighbours 2 which opened with £1.69m with no previews, its opening will be inflated with previews over last weekend.
The last stop-motion animated Wes Anderson film was Fantastic Mr Fox which benefited from being based on a beloved British children’s book Isle of Dogs is quirkier. Being very different to anything else released and something older audiences might prefer could see it open close to The Grand Budapest Hotel opened March 2014 with £1,532,239. Easter weekend is very lucrative and with cold wet weather expected for the weekend could be a very lucrative weekend.
Peter Rabbit will hold strong as it enters two very lucrative weeks of the Easter holidays which will see its box office double to over £25m. But Pacific Rim: Uprising and A Wrinkle in Time will drop heavily as Tomb Raider did this weekend. While The Greatest Showman will have an encore over the holidays before being released on DVD in May.

Opening March 30^th
Opening UK

• Ready Player One – Warner Bros

Sci-fi action adventure starring Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, T.J. Miller, Simon Pegg, and Mark Rylance and directed by Steven Spielberg based on Ernest Cline novel; premiered at South by Southwest on March 11^th and had UK premiere m March 19^th receiving positive reviews with 81% Rotten Tomatoes score with many calling it one of Steven Spielberg’s best sci-fi films.
80s and 90s nostalgia have been massive at the box office over recent years with the likes of Jurassic World and Star Wars: The Force Awakens and TV series The Goldberg’s but has also been a backlash with some including Point-Break and Ghostbusters and has been a little backlash earlier on to Ready Player One.

It was originally set for release on December 15^th, 2017 in August 2015 but was moved to 30^th March 2018 in February 2016 after Star Wars: Episode VIII was dated for the same date.
For all of Steven Spielberg’s massive films he has directed over the last 40+ years, few have had a huge opening if compared to current levels even allowing for inflation increases since they were released only War of the Worlds and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

This has more to do with his films always have had a much longer playing time in cinemas than most films go back 25 years Jurassic Park opened with £4.9m had a small drop in its second weekend and was playing in cinemas for over a year. Even his more recent films which opened more modestly Bridge of Spies, The BFG and The Post all had longer runs in cinemas than similar films.
17 years ago, Steven Spielberg directed A.I. Artificial Intelligence opened with £2.28m taking £8.02m (today would be £4.2m and total £14.7m) the following year directed Minority Report opening with £4.5m taking £20.2m (today would be £8.1m taking £35.43m)
Similar films to Ready Player One include Ender’s Game, The Girl with All the Gifts, The Running Man. Strange Days, The Lawnmower Man, The Matrix, Total Recall and Tron Legacy.
19 years ago, while everyone was eagerly awaiting Star Wars: The Phantom Menace a month earlier The Matrix blew people away opening with £3,384,948 in June 1999 taking £16,918,842. The Matrix Reloaded opened in May 2003 with £12,165,276 taking £32,510,686 and Matrix Revolutions opened in November £8,712,350 taking £17,754,338 have been recent rumours of a sequel or reboot but that has a lot to do with if Ready Player One is a success.
Was huge anticipation for Tron Legacy when it opened in December 2010 but had a disappointing opening with £1,970,692 taking £10,069,754.
With Black Panther playing out and Tomb Raider, Pacific Rim: Uprising and A Wrinkle in Time underwhelming Ready Player One is the major film opening over the lucrative Easter holidays. Last year Beauty and the Beast, The Boss Baby, Furious 8 and in 2016 Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, Zootropolis, The Huntsman Winter’s War and The Jungle Book opened all performing strongly at the box office.
While Peter Rabbit opened strongly last weekend opening with £7.2m likely to take £25m+ will Ready Player One do similar opening Wednesday with 3D screenings Thursday is the first day of the Easter school holidays and Friday is Good Friday and with the weather expected to be cold and wet, it could be very lucrative for cinemas.
Ready Player One could be the film to push VR mainstream it was launched about five years ago with many companies launching their VR headsets including PlayStation, Oculus and many mobile phone operators but it has yet to take over. Hollywood has helped to sell products in the past more recently through product placement but in the 80s and 90s The Blues Brothers and Top Gun boosted sales of Ray-Ban sunglasses brands, E.T. is said to of increased sales of Reese’s Pieces, GoldenEye helped boost pre-orders of BMW roadster and Toy Story helped revive Etch-A-Sketch. Apple and Amazon among other tech companies are betting heavily on VT as are Facebook, Sony and Google.

• Blockers – Universal Pictures

Comedy starring stars Leslie Mann, Ike Barinholtz, John Cena, Kathryn Newton, Graham Phillips and June Diane Raphael and directed by Kay Cannon; premiered at South by Southwest on March 10^th receiving positive reviews saying it’s not as gross-out as you might have imagined.
Teen sex comedies have been popular since the 80s with Porky’s, Bachelor Party, The Sure Thing, Revenge of the Nerds, Risky Business, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Can’t Buy Me Love and many John Hughes comedies. In the early 90s had Clueless and Can’t Hardly Wait but turned to more gross-out with There’s Something About Mary and American Pie and its many sequels in the late 90’s.
In the 00’s was The Girl Next Door, Road Trip, Sex Drive, Van Wilder, Old School, Super Bad and more recently Project X, Hot Tub Time Machine, The Inbetweeners Movie, Easy A, John Tucker Must Die, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Bad Neighbours 2, The House Bunny and She’s Out of My League but most were centred around teenage boys only apart from Clueless, Bad Neighbours 2 and The House Bunny. While the first Bad Neighbours was a huge hit the sequel underwhelmed.
Have had grown up female-centric comedies including Knock Up and Trainwreck both from Judd Apatow and TV shows Sex and the City, Girls, Broad City and Inside Amy Schumer.
The film had weekend previews last weekend

• Isle of Dogs – 20^th Century Fox

The stop-motion animated featuring ensemble voice cast of Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Jeff Goldblum, and Bob Balaban and written and directed by Wes Anderson; had its world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival in February receiving critical acclaim and 97% Rotten Tomatoes score.
It was acquired by Fox Searchlight in December 2016 and is 20th Century Fox/Fox Searchlight fourth film directed by Wes Anderson after The Darjeeling Limited, Fantastic Mr. Fox and The Grand Budapest Hotel.
The film has received strong media coverage over the week ahead of opening with Picturehouse Cinemas holding preview screenings last weekend for dogs and their owners
Fantastic Mr Fox opened October 2009 with £1,517,312 taking £8,707,283
The Grand Budapest Hotel opened March 2014 with £1,532,239 taking £10,978,014;
Moonrise Kingdom opened in May 2012 with £251,760 taking £1,378,748
The Darjeeling Limited opened November 2007 with £435,198 taking £1,323,698
Other recent stop-motion films include Early Man released in January and My Life as a Courgette and Kubo and the Two Strings released in 2016.
The new video from Honest Trailers highlights the similarities of all Wes Anderson’s films.

There was a report online that the film has seen many people suffer from Narcolepsy while watching the film.

• Duck Duck Goose – Entertainment Films

Animated comedy featuring the voices of Jim Gaffigan, Zendaya, Diedrich Bader, Jennifer Grey, Rick Overton, Craig Ferguson, Stephen Fry and Carl Reiner and directed by Chris Jenkins.

• Journeyman – Studiocanal

Boxing drama starring Paddy Considine, Jodie Whittaker & Paul Popplewell and written and directed by Paddy Considine.
As You Were Never Really Here the film received its UK premiere at the London Film Festival receiving average reviews with s strong performance from Jodie Whittaker.
It is Paddy Considine’s second film as a director Tyrannosaur was released in 2011.
As with Free Fire last year, it is surprising Studiocanal choosing to premiere their films at the London Film Festival but then open them several months later. As these are films that will get limited media coverage so would have thought they would want to benefit from that coverage generated during the festival rather than just try to rebuild it several months later. Of course, my biggest issue with the London Film Festival is that it means that the weeks after the festival are very crowded as distributors they to use the little media coverage.
Last year’s opening film Breathe opened a couple of weeks after opening the film festival opening with a disappointing £0.53m but really was far too small a film to open the film festival and was a very strange choice. While studios want their films to screen at Toronto and Venice Film Festivals the London Film Festival as it comes last has lost much its status as most of the films screened have already premiered at other festivals.
As seen in the Sony hacking emails the other issue is the British Film Institute take control of the premiere and for smaller films, they must calculate if the little bit of extra media coverage is worth the loss of the ticket sales revenue from the festival screenings as many of these films have very small potential audiences.
Last year’s films include The Florida Project, Brigsby Bear, Stronger, Journey’s End, Battle of the Sexes, Ingrid Goes West, Last Flag Standing, My Generation, Call Me By Your Name, A Fantastic Woman, Professor Marston & the Wonder Women, Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Downsizing, Lady Bird, You Were Never Really Here, Three Billboards and The Shape of Water.
Did having screenings at the London Film Festival boost their box office at all as the award buzz and momentum for Three Billboards and The Shape of Water had started a month earlier at Venice and Toronto. So, it’s no wonder the festival isn’t getting the bigger films they used to get in previous years including 2013’s Tom Hanks double Captain Phillips and Saving Mr Banks.
While On Chesil Beach, Wonderstruck, Ghost Stories, How to Talk to Girls at Parties, The Breadwinner, Funny Cow, Thoroughbreds and Foxtrot among many more still unreleased theatrically.

• Midnight Sun- Studiocanal

Romantic drama starring Bella Thorne, Patrick Schwarzenegger, and Rob Riggle and directed by Scott Speer based on the 2006 Japanese film of the same name.
Opening in the US

• Ready Player One – Warner Bros

Ever since Black Panther opened 6 weeks ago it has cannibalized the marketplace as no one could have predicted the size of its opening and then the way it has held so strongly over the weeks after opening. As it was such a surprise it squeezed the box office of all the films that opened after it which has seen March box office down 28% from last year $722.5 million Vs $997.3 million last year. While Black Panther might have taken over $630m only Peter Rabbit and Fifty Shades Freed have also just taken over $100m at the box office.
Last year March took over $1.2 billion with Beauty and the Beast $504m, Logan $226m, The Boss Baby $175m and Kong: Skull Island $168m and in 2016 it took $939 billion with Zootopia $341m and Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice $330.4m. Currently, the biggest film in March is A Wrinkle in Time $74.1m, Red Sparrow $44.1m and Tomb Raider $41.4m.
Will Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One come to the rescue Warner Bros was hoping for an opening $50m+ but tracking at the start of the month was predicting $35-45m that was before the film premiered at SXSW and received very positive reviews and it is those reviews that could help it open bigger.
Steven Spielberg has his name behind some of the biggest and most popular films released over the last 30+ years but despite this only three of his films have opened with more than $50m two of them sequels Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and The Lost World: Jurassic Park and the other a remake War of the Worlds. All his other films have opened smaller but had long theatrical runs.

As many of his biggest hits opened over 10 years ago it’s only when you compare their inflation inflated openings can see how big they opened today with eight of them opening with $50m+.
While Steven Spielberg has had steady success over the last few years making films for older audiences War Horse, Lincoln, Bridge of Spies and The Post his last tentpole release The BFG underwhelmed at the box office. His last big box officer earner was the very disappointing Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull that opened 10 years ago.
In recent years we have had many films that look nostalgically back to the 80s and Ready Player One features many Easter eggs from many of those films that will likely play strongly to parents who grew up with Steven Spielberg.
When the first teaser was released there was some backlash to the film as there was to the reimagining of classic film posters.
An opening between $38-42m is now expected which would be disappointing for the $175m budget film showing that the Steven Spielberg name doesn’t have the same value it had 20 years ago maybe he needs Indiana Jones 5 to get him back into the tentpole business.
Which would put opening closer to films like A Wrinkle in Time $33.2m, Tron Legacy with $44.1m in December 2010; Tomorrowland with $33.1m in May 2015; Interstellar with $47.5m in November 2014; Oblivion with $37.1m in April 2013; The Last Airbender with $40.3m in July 2010.
Rather than films like Gravity opening with $55.7m in October 2013, Prometheus $51.1m in June 2012 and Inception $62.7m in July 2010

• Tyler Perry’s Acrimony – Lionsgate

Psychological thriller starring Taraji P. Henson, Lyriq Bent, Jazmyn Simon, and Crystle Stewart and written, and directed by Tyler Perry.
Tyler Perry’s 18^th film for Lionsgate over the last 13 years and his penultimate film for the studio (his final film A Madea Family Funeral is currently undated to open in the autumn) before his untitled film for Paramount opening in November.
His films continue to “surprise” at the box office due to tracking always seemly having an issue to monitor films targetting non-white audience.
The 17 films have an average opening of $22,048,225 and the average total of $50,824,750 which is exactly what his last film Boo 2! A Madea Halloween took last October opening with $21.22m taking $47.31m. But as Acrimony is an original film and would have been trailered before Black Panther and opens Easter weekend could open bigger $25m+.
The 17 films have taken $864m at the box office as they have budgets under $25m are highly profitable for Lionsgate but still don’t travel well internationally despite Tyler Perry acting in other films including Gone Girl, Star Trek and Alex Cross.