The winner #1: Hotel Transylvania 2
With a stonking opening of £6.32m, Hotel Transylvania 2 sits at the top of the UK box-office chart by a wide margin. Considering the original Hotel Transylvania has a lifetime UK gross of £8.30m, and the whole of the October half-term holiday is yet to come, distributor Sony has every reason to feel satisfied with its campaign. A big point to note, however, is that Hotel Transylvania 2 achieved its opening number thanks to a very aggressive previews strategy. The film played in cinemas for not just the previous Saturday and Sunday (10-11 October), but also the one before that (3-4 October). That means that the £6.32m debut represents takings from a full seven days of play. Over the actual 16-18 October period, it grossed £2.82m.
The success of Hotel Transylvania 2 confirms Sony as a growing player in animation. While Disney remains in poll position, thanks to its ownership of Pixar, and DreamWorks Animation is hanging on in second place, the chasing pack is closing in. Fox, of course, has its Ice Age franchise; Universal scored a golden ticket with Despicable Me; and Warners joined the elite club with The Lego Movie. With Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 (£12.59m), Sony managed to nearly double the UK gross of its predecessor (£6.64m) and may be looking to achieve a similar feat with the Hotel Transylvania franchise. Sony’s biggest hits in animation have so far come courtesy of its relationship with the Aardman studio: ie Arthur Christmas (£21.40m) and The Pirates! in an Adventure with Scientists (£16.86m).
The winner #2: Suffragette
When Sony moved the UK release date of Spectre from 23 October to 26 October, the switch created a problem for Pathé and Suffragette. Dated to release on 30 October, the film’s opening weekend would see it face competition from Spectre on its debut weekend. Pathé and its distribution partner Fox looked at all the alternative Fridays in October, and none of them worked, for different reasons. Suffragette had already been announced as the opening title of the London film festival (occurring on Wednesday 7 October), and the film had also been promised to a large number of partnership screenings, which all had to follow the festival premiere but precede release. Eventually, Fox came up with a novel suggestion for Suffragette: Monday 12 October. In other words, it was copying Sony’s Monday move. The date switch would give Suffragette two weeks of play before Spectre arrives and grabs at least 1,000 UK screens. Although the new date was pretty much forced on Pathé, the Monday move actually made a whole lot of sense. This is a film that was always going to skew towards women and older audiences; the latter have shown a marked preference for visiting the film on weekdays.
Women are more likely to see films with female friends midweek, and with male partners at weekends. In other words, Suffragette’s date switch would see it reaching some of its key audiences from the get-go. Suffragette grossed a decent £1.54m at the weekend, which would have been enough for fourth place in the chart. Those extra takings on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday last week push it to £2.94m, and second place. In the past, films that have opened on Monday have tended to be major family-skewing blockbusters, and have coincided with a half-term holiday – Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in May 2004, for example. Instances have been rare, and it’s never been tried for a film like Suffragette. The success suggests it may soon be tried again for a film targeting an upscale adult audience. Suffragette’s strong performance on weekdays can be gauged by the fact that it was the top-grossing film on Monday, ahead of The Martian.
Third place: Pan
Released in the US one week ahead of the UK, Pan became stigmatised with the “flop” label before audiences here had any say in the matter. In fact, it’s done not so disastrously, with £1.68m at the weekend, and £2.74m including previews from the previous Saturday and Sunday. Relative to a reported $150m (£97m) production budget, the numbers are soft, but the film does have the whole half-term holiday ahead of it. There are no more big family films challenging for the holiday audience, so Hotel Transylvania 2 and Pan should chug along nicely. Of course, Spectre, rated 12A, will play massively to families with teens and pre-teens from next Monday.
The under-performer: Crimson Peak
Screening very late to press, and with a reviews embargo tight on release, Guillermo del Toro’s Crimson Peak bore all the hallmarks of a film in trouble. In fact, it’s enjoyed plenty of critical support, including in the Guardian, and boasts a sturdy 7.2/10 user rating at IMDb. The film’s problem, if it has one, is its market positioning, since it sits rather uneasily between the horror, fantasy and psychological drama genres, and it appears not to have the commercial heft to match its reported $55m budget.A UK opening of £967,000 seems light, given the expectations that were loaded on to this film when it went into production. Comparisons with prior Del Toro titles are hard to make, given his eclectic CV.
The flop: The Program
Landing outside the top 10, with a weak £144,000 from 149 cinemas, Stephen Frears’s Lance Armstrong biopic The Program struggled to position itself as a must-see for audiences. Like The Fifth Estate, starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Julian Assange, The Program faced the challenge of a divisive protagonist, as well as a recently released hit documentary that had already informed audiences about many of the events depicted (We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks and The Armstrong Lie respectively). The Program didn’t emerge from the Toronto film festival with much in the way of awards buzz, and Ben Foster, who plays Armstrong, is more admired character actor than movie star. With mostly three-star reviews from critics, The Program was always a tough title to successfully launch. The Fifth Estate debuted in October 2013 with £502,000 from 411 cinemas.
The live event
In the category of event cinema, Benedict Cumberbatch as Hamlet was always going to be a winner. Announced for Thursday 15 October by distributor NT Live many months ago, tickets quickly sold out at multiple cinemas, especially the indie chains such as Picturehouse, Everyman and Curzon. The show was in fact carried by a whopping 652 cinemas, which NT Live says represents 87% of the UK’s total. On Thursday, takings were a very impressive £1.79m, with a few encores at the weekend taking the tally so far up to £1.90m. The bulk of the encore showings programmed so far occur this Thursday and the coming weekend, which will easily see Hamlet crash through the £2m barrier. It’s already the highest-grossing Shakespeare play at UK cinemas, ahead of David Tennant in Richard II (£1.47m) and Tom Hiddleston in Coriolanus (£1.22m).
The arthouse hit
Landing in ninth place, despite a relatively tight release on 75 screens, The Lobster delivered a handy £230,000 at the weekend, including previews of £10,000. The film benefited from a memorably high-concept premise, but there was always a concern that it would seem too surreal for broader audiences. Cinema-bookers will be happy with a site average of £3,062, and The Lobster should have no problem holding its venues this weekend. Greek auteur Yorgos Lanthimos’s previous best here was Dogtooth, which grossed £180,000 over its entire theatrical run. That film was subtitled, of course.
Tom Hardy breaks personal record
Tom Hardy began 2015 with no major hit movie under his belt featuring him in the lead role – his previous best were This Means War (£5.09m) and Lawless (£4.27m) and he was really a co-lead in both. He had supporting roles in blockbusters Inception and The Dark Knight Rises. This year has seen a big change, with Mad Max: Fury Road achieving £17.40m here, though likewise that was more a co-lead. Already, that benchmark has been passed, since the weekend saw Legend rise to £17.58m, Hardy’s biggest ever UK gross as a lead.
The future
Albeit inflated by the inclusion of previews for Hotel Transylvania 2, Suffragette and Pan, overall the market showed a generous 90% rise on the previous frame, and a 33% rise on the equivalent weekend from 2014, when Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arrived at the top spot. Since Spectre is set to land next Monday, distributors are running scared, and the coming weekend offers fairly lean pickings. Most notable is gambling road movie Mississippi Grind, with Ben Mendelsohn and Ryan Reynolds. Family films Paper Planes, Maya the Bee, Animal Kingdom: Let’s Go Ape, The Big Knights (from the makers of Peppa Pig), The Little Penguin: Pororo’s Racing Adventure and My Little Pony Equestria Girls: Friendship Games are all positioned for half term. Stealing a march on competitors, Vin Diesel’s The Witch Hunter arrives on Wednesday. It’s followed on Friday by franchise entry Paranormal Activity: Ghost Dimension. Documentaries on offer include Brand: A Second Coming (about Russell Brand) and Listen to Me Marlon (about Marlon Brando). This Wednesday sees a major re-release for Back to the Future 2 – appropriately enough, since October 21 2015 was the future destination date for that particular movie.
Top 10 films, 16-18 October
1. Hotel Transylvania 2, £6,317,438 from 557 sites (new)
2. Suffragette, £2,938,446 from 526 sites (new)
3. Pan, £2,738,758 from 491 sites (new)
4. The Martian, £2,419,958 from 564 sites. Total: £17,491,033
5. Crimson Peak, £967,168 from 421 sites (new)
6. Sicario, £877,236 from 438 sites. Total: £3,341,737
7. Legend, £449,248 from 327 sites. Total: £17,578,665
8. The Intern, £269,851 from 299 sites. Total: £2,402,314
9. The Lobster, £229,619 from 75 sites (new)
10. Everest, £218,450 from 255 sites. Total: £10,265,763
Other openers
Otello – Met Opera, £172,773 from 166 sites
The Program, £144,181 from 149 sites
Hamlet – Barbican, £113,322 (+ £1,788,682 from Thursday event). Total: £1,902,004
Pyaar Ka Punchnama 2, £14,914 from 12 sites
Hayat Opucugu, £1,001 from 1 site
Censored Voices, £805 from 3 sites
SuperBob, £726 from 10 sites
Howl, £554 from 1 site
North vs South, £499 from 9 sites
Living in the Age of Aeroplanes, £145 from 1 site
Rough Cut, no data available
- Thanks to Rentrak
