The winners: Sing, T2, La La Land and Split
Sing, T2 Trainspotting, La La Land and Split shrugged off the challenge from the weekend’s new releases to hold on to the top four places in the UK box-office chart. All fell by similar amounts, with Split and Sing declining 38% and 40% from the previous session, and La La Land and T2 Trainspotting dropping by 42% and 43%.
After 12 days, Illumination Entertainment’s Sing has rung up £15.3m – impressive when you consider that the February half-term holiday is still ahead. For comparison, Illumination’s The Secret Life of Pets had reached £16.6m at the same stage of its release last summer, on its way to a spiffy lifetime total of £42.9m. Sing faced competition from previews of The Lego Batman Movie.
With £10.6m so far, T2 Trainspotting is most of the way to matching the lifetime box office of 1996’s original Trainspotting – £12.4m. The belated sequel should overtake its predecessor by the end of the week (without taking into account ticket price inflation). T2 is also whizzing up the all time UK box-office chart for 18-certificate titles, and will soon overtake Inglourious Basterds (£10.9m), Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (£11.8m) and Snatch (£12.3m). Fifty Shades of Grey remains uncatchable (at least by T2), with £35.1m.
The Oscar competitors
With £24.5m so far, La La Land has already overtaken the biggest-grossing titles among last year’s best picture Oscar nominees – The Martian (£23.5m), and The Revenant (£23.4m) – and is miles ahead of this year’s other best-picture nominees.
Hell or High Water is likely to remain the lowest-grossing of the nine titles, with £1.74m. Manchester By the Sea has reached £2.65m and probably won’t get substantially further than that. Ditto Arrival, which is at £9.39m. Hacksaw Ridge is at £3.20m, and Lion an impressive £5m, with both films likely to enjoy more box office life. Lion fell a slim 21% at the weekend – the smallest decline of any film in the UK Top 20. Three best picture nominees – Fences, Hidden Figures and Moonlight – begin a platform run this weekend in order to qualify for this year’s Baftas, and then expand on February 17.
The multiplex battle: Rings, Resident Evil 6 and Gold
With £812,000, Rings is the highest grossing among the weekend’s new releases, but that was only enough to earn seventh place in the chart. That’s the lowest gross for a top-performing new release since Melissa McCarthy won that distinction in June 2016. On that occasion, The Boss landed in the chart in seventh place with £595,000, and chicklit adaptation Me Before You moved up to the top spot.
Rings is a reboot of DreamWorks’ English-language The Ring franchise, which yielded films in 2002 and 2005. The Ring 2 began with £2.06m and The Ring with £2.20m, so Rings has fallen well below those opening salvos.
One place below Rings in the chart, Resident Evil: The Final Chapter begins with a lacklustre £464,000. Predecessor Resident Evil: Retribution began with £792,000 in September 2012, on its way to a total of £1.87m. Distributor Sony will be looking for the film to make up the ground on home entertainment platforms.
Prospecting adventure Gold, starring Matthew McConaughey, took a less-than-glittering £406,000. One problem this film faces is that independent cinemas are rammed with T2 and Oscar bait. So Gold has relied on the multiplexes to take up the slack, but it hardly qualifies as a must-see. DVD could offer a rosier outcome.
The arthouse arrivals: Loving and Toni Erdmann
Landing just outside the Top 10 is Loving, starring Ruth Negga and Joel Edgerton. Negga scored the film’s sole Oscar nomination, presenting a challenge for distributor Universal trying to shout about this inspiring true-life tale in a market cluttered by La La Land, Lion, Hacksaw Ridge and Jackie. An opening of £236,000 from 189 cinemas yielded a so-so site average of £1,249.
Delivering a stronger average is German comedy Toni Erdmann, which is nominated in the Oscars’ foreign language picture category. The film took £123,000 from 41 cinemas, with previews boosting that tally to £158,000. Not including previews in the total, site average is a robust £2,993. Based on that opening number, Toni Erdmann is certain to be one of the top-grossing foreign language films here this year, excluding Bollywood titles.
The future
Given the paucity of commercially potent new releases, takings fell by a hefty 46% from the previous frame, which was itself inflated by a nice chunk of Sing previews. However, box office was 29% up on the equivalent session from 2016, when Goosebumps and Dad’s Army arrived in the top two places.
The immediate prospect is rosier for cinemas, given the arrival this weekend of The Lego Batman Movie (rated U) and also Fifty Shades Darker (rated 18). These two films should segment nicely, serving non-competing audiences. Oscar hopefuls Fences, Hidden Figures and Moonlight all begin platform releases. Mike Mills’ 20th Century Women, starring Annette Bening, may suffer from a crowded market and its single Oscar nomination (for original screenplay). The same might be said for Ang Lee’s once hotly anticipated Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk. Sci-fi teen romance The Space Between Us – think The Man Who Fell to Earth meets The Fault in Our Stars – flopped at the weekend in the US. Alternatives include Alice Lowe’s directorial debut Prevenge, in which she also stars, and a rerelease of the 1976 classic Taxi Driver.
Top 10 films, 3-5 February
1. Sing, £3,800,408 from 554 sites. Total: £15,292,036 (two weeks)
2. T2 Trainspotting, £2,935,145 from 609 sites. Total: £10,638,197 (two weeks)
3. La La Land, £1,807,593 from 625 sites. Total: £24,517,773 (two weeks)
4. Split, £1,246,171 from 446 sites. Total: £8,261,329 (three weeks)
5. Lion, £872,699 from 400 sites. Total: £5,002,078 (three weeks)
6. Hacksaw Ridge, £826,313 from 455 sites. Total: £3,200,795 (two weeks)
7. Rings, £812,267 from 392 sites (new)
8. Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, £463,691 from 270 sites (new)
9. Gold, £406,399 from 331 sites (new)
10. Jackie, £320,734 from 271 sites. Total: £2,559,387 (three weeks)
Other openers
Loving, £236,147 (including £1,934 previews) from 189 sites
Swan Lake – Bolshoi Ballet, £189,737 from 203 sites
Toni Erdmann, £157,688 (including £34,969 previews) from 41 sites
Yu-Gi-Oh! The Dark Side of Dimensions, £112,810 (including £62,220 previews) from 114 sites
Po Prostu Przyjazn, £65,254 from 79 sites
Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back, £58,266 from 18 sites
Jomonte Suvisheshangal, £22,789 from 38 sites
Bogan £14,193 from three sites
Nenu Local, £11,514 from 15 sites
Guardians of Oz, £498 from five sites
• Thanks to comScore. All figures relate to takings in UK and Ireland cinemas.
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