Allanheimer

The Fall Guy pulling a bit of a Little Mermaid from this time last year with Monday being its biggest day even if that's largely thanks to the weather. Just shy of £5m 5-day is not bad at all, might end up doing alright here. Phantom Menace only ~£100k below Joker after that impressive result, should re-enter the Top 30 today or tomorrow. Back to Black over £10m and Kung Fu Panda 4 now the highest grossing entry in the franchise unadjusted.

Awesome hold for Challengers, only down 29% from opening Friday!

The number 5 film being below £100k...yeesh Congrats to I.S.S. for pulling in a grand more than Book of Clarence last Friday lol. 17th position must be the (un)lucky number for these delayed Jan releases

Looking like Dune is gonna come up frustratingly short of £40m 😕

£300k lower than One Love's first Friday which was also school holiday boosted, but also had two days of demand burnt off, including Valentine's. £3-3.5M would be a good start but not sure what legs are gonna be like since there are no real comps for biopics centered around post-millenium musicians. These things tend to thrive off strong mid-week performances thanks to the 55+ crowd who are probably not gonna show up in the same way for this.

I wonder if KFP4 stands a chance to be in the (very strange) top ten highest grossing Dreamworks films: 1) Shrek 2 - £47.5m 2) Shrek the Third - £38.1m 3) Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit - £32m 4) Shrek Forever After - £31.1m 5) Chicken Run - £29.5m 6) Shrek - £29m 7) The Boss Baby - £28.8m 8 ) The Croods - £26.3m 9) Puss in Boots: The Last Wish - £25.8m 10) How To Train Your Dragon 2: £25.3m Home is 11th at £25.1m. What's crazy is that even if you take the Shrek/Aardman films out...no Kung Fu Panda entry makes that top ten either. 1) The Boss Baby - £28.8m 2) The Croods - £26.3m 3) How to Train Your Dragon 2 - £25.3m 4) Home - £25.3m 5) Trolls - £24.2m 6) Madagascar Escape 2 Africa - £23.3m 7) Shark Tale - £22.7m 8 ) Madagascar - £22.3m 9) Madagascar 3 - Europe's Most Wanted: £22.2m 10) Monsters vs. Aliens - £21.1m 11) How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World - £20.3m 12) Kung Fu Panda - £19.6m Very interesting that all of the top five here were released under the Fox tenure (2013-2017).

Back to Black still showing no signs of life at my local. 2/3s of daily showtimes are in the premium format screen and all of them are still very empty for Friday with only <10% allocation in each one for a theatre with a 350 seat capacity.

Yeah we must have been figuring that out at the same time because I've edited mine now to reflect the release strategy of all three films lol Bottom line...fairly useless comparisons

Kung Fu Panda - £6.1m Kung Fu Panda 2 - £6.2m Kung Fu Panda 3 - £4.8m So it's the second-lowesting opening in the franchise, but it's also the only one tactically dropped at the start of a holiday period. The first opened three weeks before summer holidays, the third 2 weeks before Easter and the second didn't drop until right after the May half-term. Now...KFP3 had previews on the preceding weekend so it actually only did £3.2m on its "initial" FSS and £1.6m in previews. The same goes for the previous two films, so here's the numbers for all four films' official first FSS. Kung Fu Panda: £3.11m Kung Fu Panda 2: £3.07m Kung Fu Panda 3: £3.18m Kung Fu Panda 4: £3.9m

Those Easter Sunday drops...ouch. Naturally it's still all to play from today but ended up being a pretty rough weekend except for Dune.

Not surprised by those drops, yesterday was one of the nicest days for weather in months. Might take the edge off drops today since another bad weather day is forecast.

Not surprising considering how poorly King of the Monsters did here (made roughly the same as Dark Phoenix and MIB: International in June 2019 yikes) and GvK not getting a proper theatrical release besides somewhat hanging around when cinemas did reopen in May 2021. Trolls Band Together dropped a third on the first one after World Tour went to PVOD, so if we treat this more as the third Kong entry, a little over £10m might be a fair expectation for this. Anecdotally, I've walked past a couple toy shops in the last few days and their windows are fully kitted out with toys for the film with proper displays and everything. No Kung Fu Panda or Ghostbusters toys either, just Godzilla x Kong. Wondering if WB/Legendary are gearing more towards families with this one, could mean it's more walk-up friendly throughout Easter.

Another great hold for Dune, it's narrowed the gap on The Batman to £5m at the same point with a fourth weekend a full million higher. Looking at the BFI IMAX's booking schedule it seems like it's bowing out of the format to make way for Civil War on the 12th. That being said, it looks like they're already accommodating for it to come back once that film's week exclusivity is done since they've only booked in Civil War for two showings on Thursday 18th. If it can reclaim IMAX for the back-half of April, I reckon it can eek out £40m assuming it performs well throughout the Easter holidays.

The Despicable Me films have all (freakily) landed on £47m since the second one so that's probably a safe bet looking at the rest of the year. I've been thinking for a while that this year looks like another 2014, hopefully something does overperform enough to get over £50m though. At the very least next year looks a lot more promising.

That’s honestly a fairly weak start for Migration, only £30k higher than Wish. Should still go for £2.5m+ FSS, but this really puts a dampener on even £15m+ total here. With no other competition besides Wonka, I had that as the floor until now.

Who do we have winning the weekend then; Argylle or Migration? Either way Universal wins, but I’m coming with Migration. I wouldn’t be shocked if Argylle pulls it out somehow, but it’s the first animated film for youngings in over two months.

Thank god you’re back, we need to know how Baghead (2024) is doing

Thanks for the regular updates Fear of January box office woes firmly put to bed once again. Four films over £1M (potentially 5 with The Beekeeper) which is above the same weekend last year; Empire of Light was below £1M because it burnt off 4 days of demand by opening on the previous Monday.

My local seems fine so far. Daytime shows look fairly dead but the latest showing at 8pm on opening day is already over 50% occupancy. Still just under a week out so still too early to tell, opening weekend listings are only for premium format so I guess there’s real urgency for presales. I’m not sure why Paramount delayed it 5 days here though and opted for a Wednesday in the middle of January.

Wouldn’t be surprised to see Wonka lose its number one streak to One Life at some point this week.

Is Wonka gonna get over £30m before EOB on Christmas Eve???

Marvels only 4K above Thanksgiving is absolutely insane it’s basically already out of theatres good God

Kevin Bridges: 1 - 0 :Kevin Feige

Saw franchise openings in the U.K. & Ireland: Saw 3D (2010) - £3.6m Saw III (2006) - £2.52m Saw IV (2007) - £2.48m Saw V (2008) - £2.44m Saw II (2005) - £2.19m Jigsaw (2017) - £1.85m Saw VI (2009) - £1.74m Saw (2004) - £1.24m Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021) - £779k

Death on the Nile opened to £1.9m so a tad higher. Obviously it’s a lot lower than Murder on the Orient Express’ £5m but that was always fairly insurmountable. Feels fairly safe to say that we’re not getting a September release with a final tap over £10m this year though. It will be the first September since 2014 (not including 2020) that won’t have one.