The winner
A combination of wet weather and the Easter holiday created a box-office bonanza for UK cinemas at the weekend, with the 3D re-release of Titanic emerging top of a highly competitive heap. With an impressive Friday-Sunday total of £2.86m including £97,000 in previews, the James Cameron epic went on to pull in a further £1.03m on bank holiday Monday, yielding a holiday weekend haul of £3.88m. This compares with a debut weekend of £4.81m for Titanic back in January 1998, and an opening weekend of £1.53m (including £228,000 in previews) for recent 3D re-release, Star Wars: Episode I. The Lion King 3D kicked off its run with £2.75m last October, on its way to a gross so far of £12.37m.
The runners-up
Three movies fought for bragging rights on the runner-up spot. Going just by the official Friday-Sunday weekend period, The Hunger Games won it, with £2.39m, buoyed by a relatively slim decline from the previous weekend of 20%. The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists came in a bit lower, but when bank holiday Monday takings are added in, the Aardman animation beats the Suzanne Collins adaptation by £3.58m to £3.42m. The Pirates! also enjoyed an excellent hold, up 14% from the previous weekend. All films benefited from the fact that Friday was a school holiday, with many titles seeing significant upticks on the day compared with the week before. Landing ahead of The Pirates! in the official top 10 is Mirror Mirror, with £2.39m. However, that figure is boosted by four whole days of preview takings (Monday-Thursday) totalling £1.25m. Including bank holiday Monday, the Snow White adventure managed £3.01m, although it's worth noting that this figure represents grosses from eight days of play.
Although weekend box-office charts dominate media attention, during school holiday periods significant sums can be achieved midweek. Hunger Games has grossed more than £6.3m since last Monday, and The Pirates! just shy of £7m over the same period. With another week of holiday for state schools, and two for private ones, there is clearly a lot more earning potential for top titles, especially if the wet weather holds. Four films in the official weekend chart achieved grosses in excess of £2m, for the first time since August 2010, when Toy Story 3, Knight and Day, Inception and Step Up 4 managed that feat.
Foreign language surges
The current season is proving to be highly fertile for foreign language cinema, with several directors achieving career bests. Arthouse crowd-pleaser The Kid with a Bike now stands at £280,000 – more than double the lifetime gross of Belgian siblings the Dardennes' previous biggest hit. With £208,000 so far, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia is comfortably the best UK result for Turkey's Nuri Bilge Ceylan. Now Aki Kaurismäki's Le Havre has joined the fray, posting a debut of £63,000 from 23 screens (£95,000 including bank holiday Monday and a few previews). The Finnish director's last film, 2007's Lights in the Dusk, opened with £6,250 from six cinemas. The one before, 2003's The Man Without a Past, did better: £33,260 from 10 venues. Le Havre Kaurismäki's first film made in the French language, was available simultaneously on video on demand via the Curzon On Demand platform; its box office does not appear to have been dented.
None of these arthouse titles came close to the weekend's top foreign language films: Bollywood flick Housefull 2, and Norwegian thriller Headhunters. The latter followed the distribution gameplan that worked for distributor Momentum with Let the Right One In, which released Easter weekend in 2009, grossing £224,000 from 68 screens, including £21,000 in previews. Headhunters aimed a bit wider, 83 cinemas, earning £265,000 including just under £10,000 in previews. Including bank holiday Monday, it's taken £381,000. Housefull 2, with £396,000 including £35,000 in previews, has achieved the best debut for an Indian language film since Ra.One last October. Including bank holiday Monday, its total to date is £495,000.
Together, these five foreign language films grossed a healthy £990,000 over the four-day holiday period. Add in Punjabi action romance Mirza: The Untold Story, and the tally tips over the £1m barrier.
The future
Due to a late Easter last year, early April 2011 represented a box-office lull, with under-performing titles including Rio, Hop and Sucker Punch. Consequently, the current market represents an astonishing 178% uptick on the equivalent weekend from a year ago. It's also a healthy 37% up on the weekend frame for last Easter, when Fast Five dominated the market. While January and February saw eight consecutive weekends where box-office trailed 2011 levels, the past four have seen consecutive upticks on the year-ago equivalents. That trend looks set to continue for at least one more weekend, given anticipated healthy holds for the current crop of films, plus the arrival today of Battleship, adapted from the Hasbro game, and then on Friday The Cabin in the Woods.
Top 10 films
1. Titanic 3D, £2,856,540 from 427 sites (New)
2. The Hunger Games, £2,394,782 from 514 sites. Total: £15,168,889
3. Mirror Mirror, £2,389,033 from 392 sites (New)
4. The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists, £2,166,162 from 551 sites. Total: £7,716,061
5. Wrath of the Titans, £1,368,131 from 473 sites. Total: £5,351,400
6. 21 Jump Street, £845,869 from 359 sites. Total: £7,331,740
7. The Cold Light of Day, £503,985 from 309 sites (New)
8. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, £451,307 from 267 sites. Total: £17,737,576
9. StreetDance 2, £424,833 from 395 sites. Total: £1,953,260
10. Housefull 2, 58 sites, £396,475
Other openers
Headhunters, 83 sites, £254,920 (+ £9,849 previews)
Le Havre, 23 sites, £63,098 (+ £1,900 previews)
This Must Be the Place, 18 sites, £45,501 (+ £5,900 previews)
Mirza the Untold Story, 8 sites, £28,090
La Grande Illusion, 11 sites, £9,599 (+ £2,886 previews)
A Cat in Paris, 21 sites, £5,731
Ordinary, 2 sites, £2,132
North Sea Texas, 3 sites, £2,308
Return, 3 sites, £527
A Gang Story, 1 site, £46
