Top 5 Breakdown

1. Solo: A Star Wars Story – £3,147,338 – £13,907,406

Down 48% in its second weekend; taking £7.85m over half-term week.
After 11 days on release Solo in the UK -34.47% Phantom Menace -37.12% Attack of the Clones -44.54% Revenge of the Sith (ticket prices were 85% less for prequels) -79.55% The Force Awakens -60.29% Rogue One -73.29% The Last Jedi.
Solo will likely take £22m+ at the UK box office depending on how it holds this weekend against Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom this will be: (in brackets inflation inflated BO)
152.78%+ (16.53%) 1978’s Star Wars
134.61%+ (71.43%) 1997’s Star Wars: Anew Hope (Special Edition)
+306.24% (162.5%) 1997’s The Empire Strikes Back (Special Edition)
+408.97% (217.02%) 1997’s Return of the Jedi (Special Edition)
43.36% (23.46%) of 1999’s The Phantom Menace
59.08% (33.05%) of 2002’s Attack of the Clones
56.14% (34.47%) of 2005’s Revenge of the Sith
17.89% (15.67%) of 2015’s The Force Awakens
33.33% (32.2%) of 2016’s Rogue One
26.61% (25.9%) of 2017’s The Last Jedi
Analysts have blamed the poor performance of Solo on its marketing while it might have been by the numbers the point of marketing is to get the film noticed and Solo generated huge free media coverage. The reason for Solo poor performance has always been a lack of interest you only need to see highlighted by the trailer views Solo received o YouTube compared with other Star Wars films.
Solo – teaser trailer 12m – trailer 15m
The Last Jedi – teaser 44m – trailer 50m
Rogue One – teaser 44m – trailer 37m
The Force Awakens – teaser 81m – trailer 101m
Many suggested the lack of trailer until February was also an issue but with the release of The Last Jedi in December the Star Wars brand received huge media coverage. While it might have not always been positive it was being talked about and that is the purpose of drip-feeding the media marketing material on films as studios want their films talked about. The problem with Solo while generated huge media coverage became similar to young adult films that do the same, but audiences don’t come out to see the film preferring to talk about it online.
The one person reading this would say I am the pot calling the kettle black as I talk a lot about films that I don’t see and that I wrote much about my issues with Solo but hadn’t seen it but being a Star Wars film, I was always going to see it as I have done for all of the films. Having seen Solo all of my thoughts and issues with it were correct it is probably the most enjoyable of Disney’s Star Wars films, but it is also the most unnecessary as 2hr 15mins later do we know Solo any better than we did before seeing Solo just that Lucasfilm didn’t just want to do one Solo film they wanted to make several of them.
The Greatest Showman’s performance shows blaming Solo poor performance on marketing is just an excuse as last Christmas was the fourth wheel to Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and Pitch Perfect 3 but it outlasted all of them at the box office because it was a film audience wanted to see and they saw it and bought the soundtrack and saw it again and again and again and then brought the DVD.

No one gave the film a chance even 20^th Century Fox were half-hearted in their marketing campaign as fan reaction to the film became its marketing showing people is always the best kind of marketing despite the negative critical reactions cinemagoers loved the film and had people been interested in Solo they would have seen it no matter the negative media coverage surrounding the film for months.

23 weeks after opening it climbed back into the top 15 taking £90,895 only £40,000 less than #10 film On Chesil Beach taking £46,713,317 despite being on DVD for several weeks. While the soundtrack returned to #1 last weekend in its 25^th week on release outselling new albums from Ben Howard and Roger Daltrey and could hold #1.
When Disney does something there doesn’t seem to be middle ground anymore it’s either go big and win big or go big and lose big. While Disney has a lot of success by making far fewer films than their rival’s flops are much more noticeable. Most recent failures haven’t been because the film was terrible it was more because of poor marketing or dating which always surprises me as Disney are normally experts at both. While Alice through the Looking Glass and Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar’s Revenge was more to do with the box office poison that is Johnny Depp.
Had the lowest second weekend of all of Disney’s Star Wars films and the prequels taking half Rogue One: A Star Wars Story second weekend box office.

Solo is probably the most enjoyable of Disney’s four-star Wars films, but it is also the most unnecessary as it adds very little to the existing Star Wars story while we get to see the Kessel Run The New York Times compared the film to a Wikipedia entry.
Damon Lindelof spoke about the problems with prequels when tasked to rewrite Prometheus and make it less of a direct prequel to Ridley Scott‘s Alien. “There’s a problem with prequels; there’s something I don’t like about prequels, which is there’s an inevitability, that you’re just connecting dots,”
“Connecting dots is not that rewarding of an experience,” he said. “What’s rewarding is putting a puzzle together and popping that final piece in, and suddenly you understand — this actually does connect to the world I know but in unexpected ways. So, it was really about embracing something that felt a little bit more original and unexpected. Not to say that there would not be tips of the cap or strains of the familiar tropes of Alien, but they’d be more like afterthoughts as opposed to the bricks upon which the foundation was constructed.”
While he also spoke about the Star Wars prequels saying, “So this idea of the Star Wars prequels, for example, if you’re going to make three movies where you basically just tell me what I already know,” “At least embed a new idea in there that I didn’t already know or introduce a different thematic element.” The problem with Solo is it is simple this is how it all happened while the George Lucas prequels get much-deserved criticism they do take that story further, but it was easier in a way as while we knew Anakin became Darth Vader (spoiler) was much more included in the three films some of which we didn’t need to know like Anakin Skywalker’s dislike of sand “I don’t like sand. It’s coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere.”
Solo‘s co-writer Jon Kasdan originally didn’t like the idea of a Solo Anthology film saying “I was ambivalent about doing it with Lawrence Kasdan because I was sceptical there was a good movie in the story of Han’s youth. I don’t tend to like prequels because there’s little to no suspense about whether the hero will survive; of course, he will. We see him later.”
When Rogue One was released we knew there couldn’t be a sequel as the end scene of Rogue One fades into the start of A New Hope but with Solo were reports Alden Ehrenreich had a multi-picture deal with plans for a sequel to Solo. The ending of Solo sets up those sequels with Solo on his way to Tatooine and Qi’ra after killing Dryden Vos flies off to work closer with Maul.
When we are introduced to L3-37 the droid is standing up for robot rights and is seen as a companion to Lando and he is visually distraught after she dies after she removed restraining bolts in other droids to let them escape. But is Solo sees it as just a piece of hardware which Lando seems to be fine about integrated directly into the Millennium Falcon? It’s not the first time in a Star Wars film a character’s death has been a second thought as in The Last Jedi Admiral Ackbar who gave us the catchphrase “It’s a Trap” in Return of the Jedi died without much thought.
Another major issue with Solo was how dark the image was projected many people complained as I did to Vue Cinemas when I saw Solo and their reply was “For Solo, we have played the film in the way it was filmed. This was director’s intention and there has been no issue with any of our projectors when playing Solo; it is the actual film”.
But while cinematographer Bradford Young is known for experimenting with low-light cinematography many cinema experts have said they don’t believe he is at fault for the poor visibility in screenings and the fault is due to the poor state of projection. “The problem is with one of these masters of low light is if the projector’s brightness is off even just 10 percent, you lose all that detail,” “That’s why every step along the way there are standards from when the image is captured in the camera to the creation of the DCP to projection itself. The standards for light level basically haven’t changed in 100 years of cinema.” said Boston Light & Sound co-founder Chapin Cutler in an IndieWire article.
Disney has had massive success over the last decade but like anything they do they are either massive hits and then the few flops they do are far more noticeable.
John Carter – opened March 2012 £1,960,414 – -51% in second weekend £965,946 and £3,812,377 of £4,643,786.
The Lone Ranger – opened August 2013 £1,342,196 – -44% in second weekend £753,820 and £3,304,729 of £4,090,415.
Tomorrowland – opened May 2015 £1,482,178 – -27% in second weekend £1,041,255 and £4,103,403 of taking £4,971,372.
Alice Through the Looking Glass – opened May 2016 £2,229,399 – -41% in the second weekend £1,352,548 and £7,003,004 of £9,613,602 (less than Alice in opened in the UK in March 2010),
Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar’s Revenge – opened May 2017 £5,238,049 – -48% in second weekend £2,737,320 and £13,033,272 of £19,537,127.
A Wrinkle in Time – opened March 2018 £655,542 – -41% in second weekend £387,917 and £1,462,435 of £2,365,210.
While these film performances compared with many other flops from rival studios held strongly but expectations were much higher with these films and compared with other releases of Disney’s in the years these films were released their performance fell short.

2. Deadpool 2 – £2,530,069 – £26,701,776

Down 33.7% in its third weekend becoming 20^th Century Fox’s second biggest Marvel film in the UK behind Deadpool will Deadpool 2.
X-Men films are much more front-loaded than MCU films maybe it’s because they don’t open as big rival studios don’t give them the same space as MCU films and as seen with Solo performance opening after Deadpool 2 maybe the lack of alternatives is one of the reasons why they open far bigger. Surprisingly 19 MCU films have taken 88% of the total box office after three weeks while X-Men 11 films are 85% but do show that despite MCU taking almost 150% more than X-Men films the audience is similar.
Fox released Logan at the start of March last year not normally a strong time to open films but with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2, Spider-Man Homecoming and Thor: Ragnarok opening in April, July and October couldn’t open any later. They faced a similar issue the year earlier with X-Men: Apocalypse opening Deadpool in February and with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice in March, Captain America: Civil War in April, Suicide Squad in August and Doctor Strange in October. Which saw Captain America: Civil War cannibalize X-Men: Apocalypse opening Deadpool 2 three weeks after Avengers: Infinity War faced similar issues and while it probably hasn’t done as well as it might have done had it opened a month or more apart Deadpool has performed well and will be 20^th Century Fox’s twelfth and final film to take £30m+ at the box office.

Compared to other studios 20^th Century Fox might have not had as many massive hits over the years they have had steady success over recent decades as they made a wide range of genres.
While the one person who reads my ramblings might seem to think I’m ant-Disney and pro-Fox that’s not the case while I might have worked for Fox 20 years ago they made some very bad films while I was there Monkeybone and Freddy Got Fingered amongst many others. I just believe they have got the balance right with the films they make now while Disney is far more interested in making properties over films you only need to see the new trailer for Wreck-It Ralph 2 for their plans of world domination in film entertainment combining all their brands into the film.

Deadpool 2 had the third biggest X-Men second weekend in the UK after Deadpool £5,694,280 and Logan £3,858,463 and it was the twelfth biggest adding in the Marvel Cinematic Universe ahead of Spider-Man Homecoming £3,718,078.
Deadpool dropped 48% in its third weekend taking £2,987,877 and £31,154,454 with new arrivals Grimsby £1,928,789 and The Forest £448,258 no competition along with holdovers Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip £1,221,818, How to Be Single £954,311 and Goosebumps £499,446 all targetting different demographics. While Deadpool 2 had both Avengers: Infinity War and Solo both targetting its demographic and the likelihood Deadpool 2 could have done better had it of not opened so close to both of them.
Had 20h Century Fox kept Deadpool 2 original opening would of opening last weekend, of course, we will never know what would have happened if it had opened June 1^st as its unlikely Deadpool 2 was the reason why Solo opened so poorly. Opening June 1^st would of distances itself by three more weeks from Infinity War but of meant have opened only days before Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

3. Avengers: Infinity War – £1,058,425 – £68.82m

Down only 12.7% in its sixth weekend; having the second biggest sixth weekend for a Marvel Cinematic Universe film after Black Panther £1,308,281 just ahead of Avengers: Age of Ultron and Avengers Assemble.

With Solo underperforming has allowed Infinity War to hold stronger than previous MCU films thanks to half-term holidays adding £1,621,180 Mon-Thurs.

Avengers: Infinity War has overtaken Mamma Mia to become the tenth biggest film in the UK giving Disney 5 of the top 10. With Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom opening Wednesday its unlikely to overtake Beauty and the Beast, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 or Toy Story 3 many would have expected it to do after opening with £29,379,496.
Avengers Assemble took 3.29x opening and Black Panther 2.95x opening but Infinity War will be only 2.35x opening which is the second lowest opening to final box office after Thor: The Dark World. Showing how front-loaded Infinity War has been as even Justice League was 2.4x and Logan 2.53x.
In 2012 Avengers Assemble dropped down to fourth taking £847,598 and £48,367,585 behind Prometheus £6,236,580, Snow White and the Huntsman £3,589,027 and Men in Black 3 £3,032,053.
In 2015 Avengers: Age of Ultron dropped down to fifth in its sixth weekend taking £883,790 and £47,144,213 behind San Andreas £4,628,394, Pitch Perfect 2 £1,873,567, Mad Max: Fury Road £1,745,941 and Tomorrowland – A World Beyond £1,041,255.
The 19 Marvel Cinematic Universe films have taken over £573m at the UK box office over the last 10 years. Ant-Man and the Wasp is the next MCU released in August the first to be released a month after its US opening with Captain Marvel released in March and the untitled Avengers 4 in April.

4. Sherlock Gnomes – £938,672 – £7,116,136

Up 35.6% in its fourth weekend thanks to half-term week and the lack of alternatives for younger audiences over the holidays with Show Dogs increasing its box office by 10% and Peter Rabbit just outside of the top 10 taking £98,400 in its twelfth weekend.
All three films despite receiving poor reviews all have performed far better than expected at the box office due to a lack of competition; Sherlock Gnomes took £1,820,381 over Mon-Thurs half-term holidays.
Last year Sing £29.17m, The Lego Batman Movie £27.43m, Beauty and the Beast £72.43m, Power Rangers £4.52m, The Smurfs: The Lost Village £6.01m, The Boss Baby £29.11m, Peppa Pig: My First Cinema Experience £3.62m, A Dog’s Purpose £2.9m, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul £6.01m and Despicable Me 3 £47.7m all opened before the summer holidays.
2018 started strongly with Coco and Early Man ahead of half-term in February taking £18.3m and £11.15m and received positive reviews. Since there has been a lack of children’s films allowing Peter Rabbit, Sherlock Gnomes and Show Dogs to perform far stronger than expected as parents are always looking for a film that can entertain their children for a couple of hours.
Gnomeo and Juliet dropped 66% in its fourth weekend taking £842,278 (due to the arrival of Rango opening with £1,638,613) taking £14,083,933 if its final box office of £15,326,020.
The Angry Birds Movie dropped 8% in its fourth weekend in May 2016 taking £ £850,764 and £8,699,283 of £10,002,458 total.
With The Incredibles 2 and Hotel Transylvania 3: A Monster Vacation not opening for 6 weeks Sherlock Gnomes likely continue to perform well over weekends until then.
2019 has a far stronger line-up of children’s films including The LEGO Movie 2, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, The Secret Life of Pets 2, Toy Story 4, The Angry Birds Movie 2 and Frozen 2.

5. Book Club – £720,858 – NE

Targeting older audiences might have thought Book Club might have generated more interest but after mixed reviews opened almost 40% down from similar themed The First Wives Club opened 22 years ago with £1,140,941 taking £4,766,291.
With half-term over early June like mid-April has been the time distributors would release their films targetting older audiences last year My Cousin Rachel opening with £0.63m, Churchill £0.39m and Hampstead with £0.45m all of which Book Club opening bigger than.
But it is this Nancy Meyer’s kind of film that has been one of the many genres of films that used to be hugely popular 10/20 years ago and were a mainstay at the cinema for decades but now find it hard to find an audience.
Opening almost 6 months after the final Fifty Shades of Grey film didn’t help had it been released a few months a few months after the first film three years ago might have had a better chance. The only hope for Book Club is the lack of major releases over the company 4 weeks with the World Cup starting next Thursday could see Book Club hanging in cinemas much longer than it might of otherwise of done.
UK box office in detail
This weekend’s top 10 box office took £9,802,655 down 25.69% from last weekend £13,192,041;
The weekend admissions 1,253,238 down 26% from last weekend 1,693,578; 2018 average ticket price is probably up about 3% from last year’s £7.49 to £7.67 for 2018;
12 films opened at weekend taking £1,131,452; Book Club took 63.7% (£720,858); remaining 11 films shared 36.29% (£410,594)): Solo: A Star Wars Story took 32.14% (£3,147,338) and Deadpool 2 took 25.8% (£2,530,069) of the top 10; Disney-Fox top three films took 68.7%;
The weekend was down 39.14% from last year (£16,108,699) Wonder Woman £6,179,616, Baywatch £4,631,244
Down 32.73% from 2016: (£14,572,147) Warcraft: The Beginning £3,623,725, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows £3,495,445, Me Before You £1,790,657, The Nice Guys £1,004,622, Race £39,990
Next weekend in 2017: (£12,227,826) The Mummy £3,343,650, Take That: Wonderland Live from the O2 2017 £1,004,918, My Cousin Rachel £637,704, Peter Pan – NT Live 2017 £119,127, The Shack £96,580, Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer £18,017, Wilson £5,347, From the Land of the Moon £4,547
Other news

May 2018 box office is up 32% from 2017 thanks mostly to Avengers: Infinity War and Deadpool 2 performing far stronger than Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 and Alien: Covenant. Which has seen 2018 now only 1% down from 2018.
Despite the World Cup June 2018 is likely to be stronger than last year with Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom to take more than Baywatch, The Mummy, Wonder Woman and Transformers: The Last Knights combined despite the World Cup starting June 14^th. Only big film opening during the World Cup is Ocean’s Eight with The Incredibles 2 and Skyscraper opening July 13^th
From June 2017 to the end of the year Despicable Me 3, Spider-Man Homecoming, Dunkirk, It, Thor: Ragnarok, Paddington 2, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Jumanji and The Greatest Showman all took £30m+.
This year Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, The Incredibles 2, Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again, The Grinch, Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them 2, Wreck-It-Ralph 2 and Mary Poppins Returns are probably the only films that will do similar this year. Unless a film completely surprises like Dunkirk, Jumanji and The Greatest Showman can’t see how 2018 can now possibly come close to last year.
UK Box Office Top 10

US Box office

• Solo: A Star Wars Story – Disney

Drops 65.2% in its second weekend taking $29.39m and $148.98m;
Had a similar second-weekend drop to Deadpool 2 two weeks ago but its drop was far more noticeable after its poor opening and comic-book movies will often open big and drop big.
Having the second worst second-weekend drop of a Star Wars film slightly less than The Last Jedi but it took 144% more ($71,565,498) in its second weekend and 147% more ($368,167,854).
After 10 days Solo has taken -147.28% The Last Jedi, -92.11% Rogue One, -262.73% The Last Jedi, – 28.68% Revenge of the Sith, -27.07% Attack of the Clones and -28.68% Phantom Menace.

Last year much was made about Justice League only opening with $93.84m but Solo opened 10% less last weekend with $84.42m Justice League was surrounded by negative buzz for months before opening and was low expectations before it opened.
While Solo might have had similar media coverage it was coming on the back of three Star Wars films that were massive successes and was tracking to open with $150m for the weekend so its failure must be far bigger. Justice League went on to take $229.02m in the US a similar total is likely for Solo.
Disney has had tremendous success over recent years having some massive successes but making fewer films than their rivals means their failures are far more noticeable.
A Wrinkle in Time in March opened $33.12m dropped 50.9% in second weekend $16.25m and $60.75m and $97.94m total.
John Carter opened March 2012 $30.18m dropped 55% in second weekend $13.58m and $53.22m and $73.07m total.
The Lone Ranger opened July 2013 $29.21m dropped 60.6% in second weekend $11.5m and $71.46m and $89.3m total.
Tomorrowland opened May 2015 $33.02m dropped 56.7% in second weekend $14.3m and $63.68m and $93.43m total
Alice Through the Looking Glass opened May 2016 $26.85m dropped 57.9% in second weekend $11.21m and $51.39m and $77.04m total.
Memorial Day used to the start of the summer season so the weekend after would often see films suffer big drops and studios were wary of opening a film over the weekend but last year changed this with the big opening of Wonder Woman and Deadpool 2 was originally set to open this weekend before being brought forward two weeks in January.
Next year Charlie’s Angel, Gambit and The Secret Life of Pets 2 are set for release the weekend after Memorial Day and The Six Billion Dollar Man set for 2020.
2017 – Wonder Woman opened $102.25m – Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales dropped 64.9% and Baywatch dropped 52.2%
2016 – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows opened $35.31m – X-Men: Apocalypse dropped 65.3% and Alice Through the Looking Glass 57.9%
2015 – Spy opened $29.08m – San Andreas 52.7% and Aloha 66.5%
2014 – Maleficent opened $69.43m – X-Men: Days of Future Past dropped 64.2%
2013 – Now You See Me opened $29.35m and After Earth $27.52m – Fast & Furious 6 dropped 63.9% and The Hangover Part III 60.7%
2012 – Snow White and the Huntsman opened $56.21m – MIB 3 dropped 48.3%
2011 – X-Men: First Class opened $55.1m – The Hangover Part II dropped 63.5% and Kung Fu Panda 2 49.9%
2010 – Get Him to the Greek $17.57m – Killers $15.83m – Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time dropped 53.4% and Sex and the City 2 60.2%
2009 – The Hangover $44.97m- Land of the Lost $18.83m – Up dropped 35.2%
Phil Lord and Christopher Miller as directors in June 2017 which allowed them to spend more time on the screenplay to The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part the first trailer was released today, and the film is released next February.

Solo took $30.3m internationally with the total of $115.3m and globally total of $264.2m this is half Rogue One total after two weeks on release in December 2016 $237.4m international and $523.8m globally. Rogue One went on to take $1,056bn 25^th biggest film globally Solo is unlikely to take half especially as Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom opens internationally on Wednesday.

• Deadpool 2 – 20^th Century Fox

Drops 46.7% in its third weekend taking $23.17m and $254.5m
Deadpool 2 dropped less than 2016’s Deadpool in its third weekend but took 25% less $31,115,195 and 10% less than its total $254,506,035.

The 10 Marvel X-Men film has taken over $2.3bn at the box office over the last 18 years in the US and almost $5.6bn globally.
Deadpool 2 took $41.6m internationally and $344m total and $598.6m globally #148 biggest film; opened strongly in Japan over the weekend with $5.5m 26% bigger than Deadpool.
It has overtaken Ready Player One $580.4m to become the third biggest film globally of 2018 behind Black Panther and Avengers: Infinity War.
Dark Phoenix and New Mutants both originally set for release this year are the next two X-Men films set for release and is expected to be joined with the long in development Gambit will they be still released by 20th Century Fox or will Disney of acquired the studio by the time they are released; and then what is the future for X-Men films in the MCU as will R-Rated Deadpool be able to work alongside the MCU films especially as Disney isn’t planning to have any R-Rated content on the streaming site they launch next year.
Deadpool took $40m in its third weekend and $600m taking $783.1m globally total.
Deadpool took $363.1m in the US fourth biggest 20^th Century Fox film behind Avatar, Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace and Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith and $420m internationally

• Adrift – STX Entertainment

Opens with $11.6m; received 70% Rotten Tomatoes score and B CinemaScore
Opened similar to last years The Mountain Between Us $10.55m taking $30.35m and 2016’s The Finest Hours opening with $10.28m taking $27.6m.
Took $350k from 9 small international territories opening in bigger territories over the coming weeks to be an alternative to the World Cup. Shailene Woodley’s 2014’s The Fault In Our Stars performed strongly opening during the World Cup in 2014.

• Avengers: Infinity War – Disney

Drops 39.2% in its sixth weekend taking $10.5m and $643.1m.
Having the 31^st biggest sixth weekend while Black Panther had the fourth biggest weekend; The Avengers the 20^th and Avengers: Age of Ultron 152^nd.
Black Panther took 3.49x opening but Avengers: Infinity War will likely take only 2.56x it’s $257.69m opening much closer to Avengers: Age of Ultron 2.4x than Marvel’s Avengers 3x opening taking about $665m about $40m less than Black Panther.
In 2015 Avengers: Age of Ultron was the fourth biggest film globally taking $1.4bn behind Furious 7 $1.51bn, Jurassic World $1.67bn and Star Wars: The Force Awakens $2.06bn while Marvel’s The Avengers was the biggest film globally in 2012 taking $1.9bn Avengers: Infinity War is expected to be the biggest film globally of 2018.
The 18 Marvel Cinematic Universe films have taken $6.61bn in the US and $16.83bn
Infinity War took $24.3m internationally ($356.2m the third biggest Hollywood release in China) taking $1.32bn and $1.965bn worldwide.

• Action Point – Paramount Pictures

Opened with $2.39m; received 19% Rotten Tomatoes score and C+ CinemaScore
While Paramount Pictures have had strong success with A Quiet Place and decent performance with Book Club Action Point is one of the leftovers made under previous bosses.
While previous Jackass and Bad Grandpa were huge successes at the box office Paramount didn’t seem to know what to do with Action Point as they switched its release many times and were considering selling it but surprisingly decided to give it a theatrical release.
Mission: Impossible – Fallout is Paramount Pictures next release and early tracking sees it have the biggest opening of the franchise with $60m+ opening. Tom Cruise started shooting Top Gun last week that will be released 33 years after the original film was released. The first trailer for Bumblebee today a prequel to Transformers and the first Transformers film not directed by Michael Bay and looks very similar to the first film but without soft porn shots of Megan Fox.

• American Animals – The Orchard

Opened with $134,793 from 4 screens; received 83% Rotten Tomatoes score;
The Orchard and MoviePass acquired the film for $3m at the Sundance Film Festival in January and is the first film MoviePass have released theatrically.
UK Box Office Predictions

Three years ago, Jurassic World opened on a wave of nostalgia to the original film opening almost 22 years to the day Jurassic Park opened. It opened with £19,350,727 including £2,514,284 from one day of previews. Jurassic World received positive reviews but as with The Force Awakens a few months later it felt far too similar to the original film. When people saw the second trailer for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom thought that it felt far too similar to The Lost World: Jurassic Park.
With an extra day of previews its likely to open close to Jurassic World but looking across several cinemas advance ticket sales seem quite lacklustre as they were for Solo only a day before opening.
Embargo ended at 8pm on Tuesday only hours before opening internationally reviews have been mixed with many saying it starts off as The Lost World but becomes something very different and unexpected.

Not having access to the daily cinema box office data that exhibitors and distributors have access to I do spot checks on various cinemas across the country to see how bookings are doing. For Infinity War there were many almost sold out screenings but then with Deadpool 2 and more so with Solo many evening weekend screenings less than half empty Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is doing better but still plenty of seats available for weekend evening screenings. Its unlikely weather will be an issue as will be sunny but with lower temperatures than last weekend.
Opening in US

• Ocean’s 8 – Warner Bros

Heist comedy and female spin-off of Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s trilogy starring Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Mindy Kaling, Sarah Paulson, Awkwafina, Rihanna, and Helena Bonham Carter and directed by Gary Ross.
With many cameos including Matt Damon, Carl Reiner, Anna Wintour, Zayn Malik, Katie Holmes, Maria Sharapova, Serena Williams, Kim Kardashian, Adriana Lima, Kylie Jenner, Alexander Wang, Kendall Jenner, Olivia Munn, Zac Posen and Hailey Baldwin.
Gary Ross previously directed The Hunger Games (opened $152.53m taking $408.01m) 2003’s Seabiscuit (opened $20.85m taking $120.27m) and Pleasantville in 1998 (opened $8.85m taking $40.58m) his only disappointment was 2016’s Free State of Jones (opening $7.57m taking $20.81m) but was poorly dated opening the drama mid-June against summer blockbusters.
Gary Ross first screenplay was Big that celebrates its 30^th anniversary this week the Tom Hanks film directed by Penny Marshall became an instant classic. The film has many classic scenes including this one which Josh doesn’t understand why a building that transforms into a robot was fun despite what research shows which 30 years later the film industry often fails to do believing more in the search than audience opinion. While did he also invent the iPad as the new toy Josh Baskin created was a choose your own adventure digital comic book 22 years before Apple launched their iPad.

After the release of Oceans Thirteen in 2007 (opened exactly 11 years to the day Ocean’s Eight opens) Steven Soderbergh said would be no Oceans Fourteen but in 2015 a female spinoff was put into development and Ocean’s Eight is produced by Steven Soderbergh.
Ocean’s Eleven opened 7^th December 2001 with $38.1m taking $183.41m
Ocean’s Twelve opened 10^th December 2004 with $39.15m taking $112.54m
Ocean’s Thirteen opened 8^th June 2007 with $36.13m taking $117.15m
After the female spin-off of Ghostbusters received much negativity when it was announced reaction to Ocean’s Eight has been far more positive with the trailers very well received and many believed it could be a sleeper hit this summer against the bigger budget tentpoles. Many have suggested part of the reason why Disney’s first three Star Wars were box office successes where they had female leads while the female roles in Solo are more bit parts.
Ocean’s Eight started shooting in October 2016 only a few months after Ghostbusters opening but since then Wonder Woman opened which Anne Hathaway said in an interview in EW was a game changer “there’s a real impetus within the industry to make these movies and prioritize these, which is really exciting. I don’t know if it’s going to continue. I’m going to work as hard as I can to make sure that it does, and it does require the audience showing up. This aspect of moviemaking does have a political component in that if you believe in gender equality, you have to support female-driven movies because they’re not supported equally in Hollywood yet, and the only thing that’s going to get them equally supported is if they do really well at the box office.”
Next year Anne Hathaway stars with Rebel Wilson in The Hustle remake of the 1988 comedy with Steve Martin and Michael Caine comedy Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. While Disney is developing female versions of Splash and The Rocketeer and last year it was announced Warner Bros were developing a female-centric Lord of the Flies film.
Tracking was predicting an opening between $30m-$45m but after the disappointing Solo opening and a slow weekend last year Ocean’s Eight could be that something different audiences have been looking for; trailers have been viewed 22.74m times which is close to Jumanji 24m and Red Sparrow 21.23m and more than Murder on the Orient Express 20.5m.
Over the recent month there have been the boy’s movies Avengers: Infinity War, Deadpool and Solo and the generic girl’s films Overboard, I Feel Pretty and Life of the Party but Ocean’s Eight has a real chance to cross the sexes and you would hope audiences would want something different. If Ocean’s Eight was successful and it had a couple of sequels would we get another Ocean’s Eleven?

• Hereditary – A24

Supernatural horror starring Toni Collette, Alex Wolff, Milly Shapiro, Ann Dowd, and Gabriel Byrne and directed by Ari Aster. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival receiving critical acclaim has been called for months the scariest film of the year and being compared to Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook and Robert Eggers’ The Witch.

• Hotel Artemis – Global Road

Sci-Fi action starring Jodie Foster (in her first appearance on-screen since 2013’s Elysium), Sterling K. Brown, Sofia Boutella, Jeff Goldblum, Brian Tyree Henry, Jenny Slate and Zachary Quinto and written and directed by Drew Pearce.