UK box office report, May 21-23: Peter Rabbit helps cinemas come bouncing back to life
Animal adventure hops to chart victory
UK cinema operators have cause to be both mightily relieved as well as cautiously optimistic after audiences returned at the weekend in significant numbers – led by the charge of Peter Rabbit 2. The family film sequel grossed ￡3.81 million from 496 cinemas for the weekend period, and ￡4.61m including takings from Monday-to-Thursday last week.
Cinemas were permitted to reopen in England, Scotland and Wales last Monday (May 17), and by the weekend 598 had chosen to do so.
The reopening programme stands in marked contrast to the spiral of pessimism that challenged the cinema sector after the first lockdown lifted last July – when a dire lack of new film releases resulted in a tentative reopening programme, which in turn confirmed distributors’ disinclination to release strong titles. Until Tenet landed on August Bank Holiday weekend, cinemas that dared to open suffered through eight weekends of relatively weak product.
By the end of July 2020, the fifth weekend of reopening, only 326 UK cinemas were reporting box office to data gatherer Comscore, and the entire UK and Ireland market that weekend grossed ￡838,000.
In contrast, box office for the weekend just ended (May 21-23) totalled ￡7.23m, rising to ￡9.32m including previews. That’s the best weekend of the pandemic period – easily beating the only previous highlight, which was when Tenet opened last August, powering the market to ￡6.32m including previews.
Last year, after Tenet opened, the market crested steadily downwards, recovering modestly again with October half-term and before Christmas with Wonder Woman 1984. A series of lockdowns and tier restrictions across the UK and Ireland continued to dent optimism and mandate venue closures. Since Christmas, cinemas have essentially been closed for five months, with the exception of drive-ins and the odd venue in the Channel Islands and Isle Of Man.
Prospects for Peter Rabbit 2 are good. At the weekend, cinemas were closed in Ireland, Northern Ireland and Glasgow – representing 10 per cent of the UK and Ireland market. Northern Ireland has now reopened. More crucially, the half-term holiday begins this weekend, and Peter Rabbit 2 should score solid audiences all next week. Capacity restrictions will limit, but demand should mean that audiences are spread out more evenly throughout the day. Multiplexes will be tempted to add yet more Peter Rabbit 2 showtimes – bad news for other films in the market.
The first Peter Rabbit film debuted with ￡7.27m from 599 UK and Ireland cinemas in April 2018, on its way to a ￡41.1m total. Peter Rabbit was the seventh biggest hit of 2018 at the UK and Ireland box office.
Godzilla Vs Kong scores runner-up slot
While cinemas were closed, film distributors faced a choice between delaying titles and releasing via home entertainment platforms. In the case of Godzilla Vs Kong, Warner Bros opted to release digitally on April 1. Traditionally, cinemas demand a theatrical window of exclusive access to a title – a policy that is undergoing significant renegotiation between multiplex chains and content providers right now. Meanwhile, in the case of titles that were already released while venues were closed, cinema operators are viewing these as exceptional circumstances, and are booking them on a case-by-case basis.
Seven weeks after Godzilla Vs Kong’s digital release, it was to be expected that the film would have already reached the majority of its audience. In other words, primary customers for the monster mash-up had already seen it at home. So the film’s ￡784,000 box office gross from 432 sites at the weekend (and ￡1.23m in total including takings Monday-to-Thursday last week and earlier from drive-ins) is encouraging for cinema operators. It’s not a blockbuster outcome, but not too shabby for a film that’s been widely available on other platforms.
(Godzilla Vs Kong is listed in third place in the official UK chart, below, but ranks second in terms of box office earned on the May 21-23 weekend period.)
Nomadland delivers arthouse hit
In 2021, independent cinemas missed out on their annual awards-season box office bonanza, when the buzz generated by Oscar, Bafta and Golden Globe nominations traditionally helps titles punch above their box office weight. Recent beneficiaries have included Parasite (which reached ￡12m at UK and Ireland cinemas) and The Favourite (￡17m).
During the 2021 awards season, cinemas were closed, and Oscar winners including Nomadland, Judas and the Black Messiah, Minari, and Sound of Metal were released to digital or streaming. Now all those titles have been released theatrically.
The big winner so far is Nomadland, which was previously exclusive to the Disney+ subscription service. Chloé Zhao’s triple Oscar winner grossed ￡496,000 from 430 venues at the weekend, and ￡875,000 including the Monday-to-Thursday period last week. That compares with a lifetime total of ￡103,000 for Zhao’s previous feature The Rider. (Her first film Songs My Brothers Taught Me was not theatrically released in the UK.)
Judas and the Black Messiah and Minari are both widely available on digital platforms, and it’s reasonable to assume they had already reached a significant portion of their likely audience. Judas and the Black Messiah, which won Oscars for supporting actor (Daniel Kaluuya) and original song, grossed ￡127,000 from 289 cinemas at the weekend, and ￡262,000 including Monday-to-Thursday last week and previous takings from drive-ins. Minari, which won the supporting actress Oscar (for Youn Yuh-jung) grossed ￡56,100 from 122 cinemas at the weekend, and ￡105,000 in total.
Sound of Metal was previously available via streaming to Amazon Prime customers. The Riz Ahmed starrer, which won Oscars for sound and editing, grossed ￡46,900 from 205 cinemas at the weekend, and ￡84,600 in total.
In the official chart below, UK drama Ammonite appears in 10th place, with ￡130,000. It’s worth noting that the weekend box office was in fact ￡13,400 from 54 cinemas. The declared total includes ￡117,000 in previews, including more than ￡100,000 grossed last October from a single day of nationwide play in conjunction with BFI London Film Festival.
Spiral struggles to match Saw pace
Commercial hopes were high for Spiral: From the Book of Saw, which introduces fresh characters to the Saw franchise, and benefits from a higher end of casting including Chris Rock and Samuel L Jackson. Allowances must be made for the reduced capacities of venues, but Spiral’s UK debut of ￡482,000 from 330 cinemas for the weekend period, and ￡779,000 in total, feels a little soft.
Jigsaw, the previous film in the Saw franchise, began with ￡1.50m in October 2017, and ￡1.85m including previews, on its way to a ￡5.04m total. The previous seven Saw films (released from 2004 to 2010) all debuted above ￡1m, and five did so above ￡2m – with totals in the range of ￡5.4m to ￡8.6m.
Audiences for horror films and especially horror sequels are usually front-loaded as fans rush out in the first week of release. Reduced capacities may mean that the audience for Spiral is more spread out, so we may not see the rapid box office declines typical for this genre.
Glastonbury event fizzles
The technical challenges facing the livestream into homes of Glastonbury Presents: Live at Worthy Farm have been widely reported, but how did the event fare in cinemas on Saturday? Sadly for Glastonbury, the news is not good – audiences seemingly didn’t want to spend five hours in the cinema on a Saturday night to watch this kind of content. Box office was a feeble ￡12,000 from 168 cinemas, an average of ￡71 per venue.
The future
While UK cinemas are consenting to play titles – such as Godzilla Vs Kong – that were released onto digital platforms while venues were closed, what will be their policy regarding new releases? In the case of Cruella, which is available on Disney+ from Friday, the answer is that the film is playing in all major UK multiplex chains including Odeon, Cineworld and Vue. So much for the precious theatrical window.
The multiplexes might argue that we remain in exceptional circumstances, with the UK newly emerged from lockdown, and the pandemic not yet abated. In the future, we will see the return of the theatrical window, albeit drastically shortened from the 16 weeks that applied before Covid-19 transformed the relationship between cinemas and content providers.
Also released this weekend into cinemas is horror sequel The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It; Kelly Reichardt’s critically adored US indie film First Cow; Studio Ghibli animation Earwig and the Witch; Isabelle Huppert, Brendan Gleeson and Marisa Tomei in family drama Frankie, set in Sintra, Portugal; Ben Whishaw playing an airport security worker suffering a breakdown in British indie drama Surge; and more besides. Tomorrow (May 26) sees the release of Japanese anime Demon Slayer: Mugen Train, which is now the highest-grossing film of all time in Japan, and has earned more than $400m at cinemas worldwide.
Top 10 Films May 21-23
Peter Rabbit 2, ￡4,605,000 from 496 sites (new)
Nomadland, ￡874,785 from 430 sites (new)
Godzilla Vs Kong, ￡783,879 from 432 sites. Total: ￡1,227,878 (6 weeks)
Spiral: From the Book of Saw, ￡779,107 from 330 sites (new)
The Unholy, ￡405,391 from 314 sites (new)
Mortal Kombat, ￡319,313 from 340 sites (new)
Those Who Wish Me Dead, ￡302,653 from 283 sites (new)
Raya and the Last Dragon, ￡235,994 from 338 sites (new)
Tom & Jerry The Movie, ￡235,805 from 371 sites. Total: ￡335,383 (6 weeks)
Ammonite, ￡130,324 from 54 sites (new)
Other openers
Sound of Metal, ￡84,570 (including ￡37,638 previews) from 205 sites
Radhe: The Most Wanted Bhai ￡64,411 (including ￡27,785 previews) from 64 sites
Maya the Bee 3: The Golden Orb, ￡45,556 (including ￡4,654 previews) from 262 sites
My New York Year, ￡19,568 from 110 sites
Rare Beasts, ￡15,575 from 30 sites
Glastonbury Presents: Live at Worthy Farm, ￡12,001 from 168 sites
Sciema Po Polsku, ￡10,281 from 81 sites
Apples, ￡5,016 from 9 sites
The Human Factor, ￡4,324 from 13 sites
Spring Blossom, ￡2,454 from 7 sites
The United Way, ￡665 from 1 site
State Funeral, ￡592 from 3 sites
Thanks to Comscore (@cSMoviesUK).