The winner: The Secret Life of Pets
With back-to-back declines of just 20% and 24%, The Secret Life of Pets has held up remarkably well, reaching £22.3m after 19 days. It will soon overtake Zootropolis (£23.8m) to become the biggest animated film of the year so far – a title it may concede to Pixar’s Finding Dory after it opens at the end of the month.
Pets grossed £3.62m over the three-day weekend period, shrugging off the challenge of an Andy Murray Wimbledon final. This year, only The Jungle Book has taken more in its third frame. A year ago, Minions stood at £27.6m at the same stage of its run, on its way to a total of £47.8m. If Pets maintains a similar decay rate, it would reach an impressive £38.6m.
Second place: The Legend of Tarzan
Swinging into second place with £2.76m plus £809,000 in previews, The Legend of Tarzan has delivered solid numbers. Following a lengthy development process, Harry Potter director David Yates was attached in 2012. Budget wrangling delayed filming until June 2014, filming wrapped in October that year, before a lengthy post-production period. Its production budget is a reported $180m, suggesting that Warners probably had higher box-office aspirations for the film when it was greenlit. However, Tarzan is a well known character across multiple territories, and it’s too soon to be projecting the final profitability on the film.
Battle for third: Now You See Me 2 v Absolutely Fabulous
Now You See Me 2 has earned third place with box office of £2.96m. However, the film landed in cinemas last Monday, giving it four extra days of play that have been added into that total. Strip out the previews, and the illusionist caper’s weekend number drops to £1.6m. In other words, third place really belongs to Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie, which posted weekend takings of £2.32m.
The original Now You See Me began its run in July 2013 with £2.9m, including previews of £1.1m. It went on to enjoy warm word of mouth, eventually reaching £11.21m.
Absolutely Fabulous’s second weekend decline is an OK 43%. Distributor Fox will take particular heart from the midweek result last week. The film debuted with £4.04m, and took £2.32m in the second session. With a total of £9.78m so far, that means it grossed a robust £3.42m during Monday-to-Thursday last week.
The Bollywood hit: Sultan
With £1.05m, including previews of £445,000, Sultan is the biggest Bollywood hit of the year so far. Written and directed by Ali Abbas Zafar (Gunday), it’s the story of a fictional mixed martial arts star played by Salman Khan (Dabangg). Khan’s last movie, Prem Ratan Dhan Pavo, kicked off last November with £912,000 including previews of £187,000. Stripping out the previews numbers, Sultan’s debut falls short of that result. Khan also starred last year in Bajrangi Bhaijaan, which began with £758,000 and no previews.
With Central Intelligence one place above Sultan in the chart, that means six movies grossed £1m or more, which has happened only three times this year.
Indie alternatives: The Neon Demon and Maggie’s Plan
Many indie cinemas have turned to mainstream fare such as Absolutely Fabulous to keep the tills ringing this summer, and arthouse hits have been thin on the ground. The last one to open above £100,000 was Whit Stillman’s Love & Friendship, which landed in May. The weekend saw two new contenders arrive: Nicolas Winding Refn’s The Neon Demon and Rebecca Miller’s Maggie’s Plan.
The Neon Demon debuted with £127,000 from 120 venues, including previews of £9,400. For comparison, Refn’s last movie Only God Forgives kicked off with £466,000, including £10,500 in previews, from 188 cinemas. Site average was £2,478, compared with £1,058 this time around. Only God Forgives had the benefit of Ryan Gosling in the starring role, plus the box-office bounce provided by Refn’s previous film, Drive. The Neon Demon, starring Elle Fanning, enjoys an IMDb user rating of 7.0/10 and a MetaCritic score of 51/100.
Maggie’s Plan landed behind The Neon Demon, with £103,000 (including previews of £3,700) from 80 cinemas. Given the tighter rollout, its site average of £1,282 is a bit healthier. Director Miller’s previous film The Private Lives of Pippa Lee debuted on just 25 screens, grossing £44,500 on its way to a total of just under £200,000. Before that, The Ballad of Jack and Rose was even smaller, grossing £23,000 in total.
Both The Neon Demon and Maggie’s Plan saw takings dip significantly on Sunday, suggesting they were hit by the finals of Wimbledon and Euro 2016. That pattern was witnessed by all films with an adult audience skew.
The future
Takings are overall 6% up on last weekend, and an encouraging 21% up on the equivalent session from 2015, when Ted 2 was the highest new entrant. The big release for this week – Ghostbusters – is already in cinemas, since Sony opted to push it out on Monday. It will be joined on Friday by Ice Age: Collision Course. Hard to predict, for the UK, is action comedy Keanu, from Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele – the film has already grossed more than $20m in the US, where the pair are big TV stars. Alternatives include French lesbian romance Summertime, Danish comedy Men and Chicken and British documentary The Hard Stop.
Top 10 films, 8-10 July
1. The Secret Life of Pets, £3,624,751 from 612 sites. Total: £22,261.438
2. The Legend of Tarzan, £3,570,350 from 507 sites (new)
3. Now You See Me 2, £2,964,641 from 483 sites (new)
4. Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie, £2,316,349 from 640 sites. Total: £9,779,204
5. Central Intelligence, £1,342,004 from 440 sites. Total: £5,680,743
6. Sultan, £1,048,417 from 121 sites (new)
7. Independence Day: Resurgence, £782,975 from 487 sites. Total: £10,910,774
8. The Conjuring 2: The Enfield Case, £401,155 from 352 sites. Total: £10,312,076
9. The Neon Demon, £126,996 from 120 sites (new)
10. Me Before You, £126,907 from 268 sites. Total: £9,285,210
Other openers
Maggie’s Plan, £102,534 (including £3,680 previews) from 80 sites
Weiner, £16,679 (including £5,509 previews) from 13 sites
Cold War 2, £10,966 from nine sites
Ponyo, £7,720 from 38 sites (reissue)
Hide and Seek, £1,989 from one site
The Wait, £1,553 from four sites
A Poem Is a Naked Person, £141 from two sites
• Thanks to comScore. All figures relate to takings in UK and Ireland cinemas.
- This article was amended on Wednesday 13 July 2016. We mistakenly said that Dakota Fanning stars in The Neon Demon. Its star is Elle Fanning. We also said The Neon Demon debuted at 80 cinemas, in fact it opened in 120. These errors have been corrected.
