The winner
Talk about consistency. Exactly a year ago, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire opened with £10.12m plus £2.07m in previews. Now sequel Mockingjay Part 1 begins with a similar £10.32m plus £2.33m in previews. The 2% rise in box office (going just by Friday-to-Sunday takings) could be attributed to annual ticket price inflation.
Compared with the US result, the steady performance of Mockingjay is a nice outcome for Lionsgate UK. In North America, Mockingjay’s opening box office is 22% down on its predecessor: $123m, compared with $158m for Catching Fire. Lionsgate can be confident of an uptick for Part 2, which sees Katniss and the rebels storm the Capitol for a final showdown with President Snow.
In the UK, Mockingjay Part 1 has delivered the biggest opening of the year, regardless of whether or not previews are included. Previous best was The Inbetweeners 2, with £12.54m, including £4.49m in previews. Mockingjay’s previews-inclusive tally is £12.65m. The biggest-grossing film of 2014 to date is The Lego Movie, with £34.33m. Last year, Catching Fire reached £34.09m, which is presumably the target this time for Mockingjay. As per a year ago, Mockingjay has a reasonably clear run at audiences until competition from the Hobbit franchise arrives in week three.
The runner-up
For distributors, the great upside of films targeting older and upscale viewers can be their durability. This is an audience that is strong on weekdays and not just on the weekend, and one that can take its time to come out to the cinema. So it is proving with The Imitation Game, which opened a week ago with £2.74m, including £47,000 in previews. From Monday to Thursday last week, the second world war tale about codebreaker Alan Turing added £1.89m, and then this weekend it delivered an additional £2.13m – that’s down just 21% on the opening frame.
After 10 days, the film has grossed a sturdy £6.76m, with seemingly plenty of gas in the tank. The main competition for this audience is Mr Turner, which after four weeks of play is now showing signs of wear and tear: its screen average was below £1,000 for the weekend, and its takings fell 52% from the previous frame.
The previous weekend, The Imitation Game landed at number 2, below Interstellar. Now the films’ positions have switched, with Interstellar falling below The Imitation Game. Interstellar fell a troubling 50% – clearly affected by Mockingjay – and has managed £15.87m after three weekends. This compares with £19.44m for Gravity at the same stage of its run. Gravity enjoyed a long tail thanks to awards attention. It remains to be seen whether Interstellar will be similarly blessed by the awards voters.
The new arrivals
Several distributors attempted releases as counter-programming to Mockingjay, with pretty mixed results. Universal offered James Brown biopic Get On Up, pushing it out on 229 screens. A weekend gross of £110,000 yielded a weak site average of £482. Rival eOne tried a more cautious approach with its Tommy Lee Jones/Hilary Swank western The Homesman, releasing in 63 cinemas. Debut box office of £62,400 produced an average of £990. Tommy Lee Jones, who also directed, travelled to the UK to promote the film, although he’s hardly the most ingratiating pitchman. In fairness, westerns are often a tough sell in the UK – not that Jones accepts any such genre categorisation for his film.
Sony put Idris Elba home-invasion thriller No Good Deed on 99 screens, picking up £40,600 and a poor £410 average. This is a film that always looked more viable as a home-entertainment proposition.
Curzon Artificial Eye presented My Old Lady, starring Maggie Smith, in 88 cinemas, yielding £110,000. Metrodome opted for a modest release for vampire comedy What We Do in the Shadows, achieving £64,900 from 33 cinemas, plus £62,800 in previews. Glowing reviews, including a five-star rave from Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian, will have helped. Plus the film, from Flight of the Conchords’ Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi, really did seem to offer something different in the market. There are no comedies for adults in the current box-office top 10.
On the pure arthouse side, New Wave presented Cannes Palme d’Or winner Winter Sleep, from Turkey’s Nuri Bilge Ceylan, opening with £19,800 from 14 cinemas. Ceylan’s previous film Once Upon a Time in Anatolia debuted with £35,100, also from 14 cinemas, going on to a very strong sustained run, reaching £277,000. It’s fair to assume that Winter Sleep’s punishing running time of 196 minutes (past that psychological three-hour barrier) is proving a deterrent for the less committed Ceylan fan. The previous Palme d’Or winner, Blue Is the Warmest Colour, kicked off exactly a year ago with £142,000 from 52 cinemas, including £8,000 in previews. The film ended its run with £673,000.
The audience pleaser
Dropping just 14% – the smallest decline of any film on release – Nativity 3: Dude, Where’s My Donkey?! enjoyed another strong weekend of play, and has now reached £3.64m. Two years ago, Nativity 2: Danger in the Manger fell 25% in its second frame, knocked by the arrival of DreamWorks Animation’s Rise of the Guardians. This year, the Nativity film arrived a little earlier than is customary, and is enjoying a two-week run with negligible competition for the family audience. That all changes from Friday with the arrival of Paddington, which will test Nativity 3’s mettle. This Christmas presents an exceptionally competitive market for family films, with Get Santa, Penguins of Madagascar, Night at the Museum 3 and a new Disney Tinker Bell film all on their way, and Annie to follow on Boxing Day.
Admissions update
Admissions figures are in for October – number of tickets sold, rather than box-office value – and it’s good news for cinemas. They are up 12% on October 2013, boosted by the likes of Gone Girl and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. However, 2014 overall is still trailing 2013, thanks to an indifferent summer and the lack of any film so far to match such £40m-plus 2013 hits as Despicable Me 2 and Frozen. Overall, admissions are down 6% for the first 10 months of the year, compared with the same period in 2013. It’s hard to imagine the picture being radically different by year’s end.
The future
With the arrival of Mockingjay, grosses surge 60% from the previous frame, and are also 58% up on an average weekend for the past year. However, takings are down a bit – 2% – on the equivalent session from a year ago, when The Hunger Games: Catching Fire landed at the top spot, and numbers were boosted by a key piece of event cinema in the form of Doctor Who: The Day of the Doctor. As for what happens next, the weekend after a Hunger Games film is no time to unleash a big blockbuster, but Warners hopes to plug the gap in the market for a mainstream comedy with Horrible Bosses 2.
Meanwhile, StudioCanal present a very compelling proposition for families in the furry, marmalade-smeared shape of Paddington. Kids may be less familiar with the character than their parents, but the planets look aligned for a strong result. Also in the mix: Kajaki, the intense, real-life tale of British soldiers caught in a minefield in Afghanistan, playing exclusively in Vue cinemas nationwide.
Top 10 films 21-23 November
1. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1, £12,654,109 from 565 sites (new)
2. The Imitation Game, £2,129,053 from 475 sites. Total: £6,756,964
3. Interstellar, £1,895,368 from 483 sites. Total: £15,866,812
4. Nativity 3: Dude, Where’s My Donkey?!, £1,544,804 from 458 sites. Total: £3,639,614
5. Mr Turner, £356,743 from 374 sites. Total: £5,399,378
6. The Book of Life, £296,943 from 424 sites. Total: £5,718,157
7. The Drop, £229,594 from 292 sites. Total: £1,252,692
8. Il Barbiere Di Siviglia: Met Opera, £211,402 from 171 sites (new) (live event)
9. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, £179,615 from 365 sites. Total: £13,771,574
10. Gone Girl, £173,517 from 218 sites. Total: £21,945,199
Other openers
What We Do in the Shadows, £127,765 from 33 sites (including £62,849 previews)
Get On Up, £110,417 from 229 sites
My Old Lady, £110,044 from 88 sites (including £1,430 previews)
Happy Ending, £69,034 from 56 sites
The Homesman, £62,384 from 63 sites
No Good Deed, £40,583 from 99 sites
Winter Sleep, £19,822 from 14 sites
Happy Go Lucky, £4,991 from 5 sites
Mary Is Happy, Mary Is Happy, £49 from 1 site
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