The World Cup is dead. Long live Transformers 4 at the UK box office

The winner

Injecting fresh energy into a becalmed market after a blockbuster-free five-week period with no film grossing £5m in a single frame, Transformers: Age of Extinction lands with a splashy £11.75m. That's the biggest debut of the year, ahead of X-Men: Days of Future Past (£9.14m) and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (£9.01m). The box-office drought occasioned by World Cup football is finally over.

Of course, it's not as simple as that. With England's early exit from the World Cup, Age of Extinction was booked to play previews more aggressively than originally envisioned, and has in fact been in cinemas continuously since 5 July. That means that a hefty six days of previews, totalling £8.04m, have been added into the official opening tally. Strip those out, and the action sequel in fact grossed just £3.71m over the Friday-to-Sunday play period (11-13 July).

Excluding previews from consideration, Age of Extinction is only the 10th biggest opening of the year, behind X-Men: Days of Future Past, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, The Lego Movie, Godzilla, 22 Jump Street, The Wolf of Wall Street, Mrs Brown's Boys D'Movie, Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Maleficent.

Including previews, Age of Extinction is the biggest-opening Transformers movie ever in the UK, ahead of Dark of the Moon (2011, £10.73m), Revenge of the Fallen (2009, £8.35m) and the original Transformers (2007, £7.26m). However, ignoring previews, it's the lowest-grossing debut of the series so far. Going just by opening takings for Friday-to-Sunday, Dark of the Moon did £6.50m, Revenge of the Fallen £8.35m (ie there were no previews for that release) and Transformers £4.90m.

Age of Extinction is the second film this year to arrive in the chart with a nine-day opening frame, following Bad Neighbours in May. If a picture arrives on a Saturday, and is booked to play in cinemas without interruption thereafter, the argument that it has in fact opened, and is ready to be included in box-office tallies for that weekend, seems compelling.

Age of Extinction faces tough competition from the well-reviewed Dawn of the Planet of the Apes from this Thursday, so industry observers will be paying close attention to how it holds up this coming frame.

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The runner-up

Benefiting from one of the most complicated releases of any film this year, How to Train Your Dragon 2 is finally in full national play, following a period when it was previewing in England and Wales, having already opened in Scotland, Ireland and Northern Ireland. With a nifty £4.86m added in from all those previews, the animation scored a weekend tally of £7.78m, up a statistically misleading 1537% from the previous frame. The cumulative gross now stands at £9.58m.

The odd release strategy makes comparisons to many animated features impossible, but two summers ago Ice Age: Continental Drift followed a similar pattern, and stood at £13.05m at the same stage of its run. Ditto Pixar's Brave, which had reached £8.27m at this point.

Following a great result last year on The Croods ($587m worldwide), DreamWorks Animation proved less successful with Turbo ($268m) and Mr Peabody and Sherman ($264m). Hopes were high for How to Train Your Dragon 2, which has grossed $350m globally so far. Biggest animated hit of the year so far is Warners' The Lego Movie, with $468m.

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The art-house scene

Following a long stretch where independent cinemas were struggling to identify films likely to appeal to specialised audiences, two new releases have arrived to give the sector cheer. Delivering a robust site average of £3,740, Richard Linklater's Boyhood debuted with a healthy £333,000 from 89 cinemas, albeit including previews of £20,150. The long running time of the film makes it a challenge for cinema programmers to offer two evening showtimes, and the box-office number should be viewed in that context. If word-of-mouth comes close to the adulation of reviewers, a long run looks likely.

Playing at a more aggressive 347 venues, John Carney's Begin Again landed with £456,000 and a £1,315 average. That's in a similar ballpark to Chef, which arrived a couple of weeks previously with £463,000 from 372 cinemas, plus £143,000 in previews. Chef has subsequently contracted to a more sensible 108 cinemas – a move that saw its screen average increase by 26% for the weekend just ended – and Begin Again might likewise benefit from a more targeted set of playdates.

With Begin Again, Boyhood and Chef all in the top 10, cinemagoers are at least being offered alternatives to mainstream Hollywood fare. Top foreign language offerings are Bollywood title Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania in 13th place, and The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared in 15th.

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The future

Partly thanks to those £12.9m previews for Age of Extinction and How to Train Your Dragon 2, the market overall is an astonishing 282% up on the previous frame, and 121% up on the equivalent session from 2013, when Monsters University landed at the chart summit, dethroning Despicable Me 2. Overall, the weekend session is ranked first place for the past year, and is the highest since November 2012. The good news for cinemas looks set to continue with the arrival this week of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, which just scored a $73m US debut. Alternatives include Pudsey the Dog: The Movie, starring the canine Britain's Got Talent 2012 winner.

Top 10 films 11-13 July

1. Transformers: Age of Extinction, £11,751,427 from 533 sites (New)

2. How to Train Your Dragon 2, £7,779,040 from 555 sites. Total: £9,577,152

3. Mrs Brown's Boys D'Movie, £1,081,303 from 487 sites. Total: £11,872,300

4. The Fault in Our Stars, £558,626 from 451 sites. Total: £9,887,813

5. Begin Again, £456,438 from 347 sites (New)

6. 22 Jump Street, £416,025 from 331 sites. Total: £17,489,355

7. Boyhood, £332,834 from 89 sites (New)

8. Maleficent, £312,747 from 404 sites. Total: £17,968,329

9. Tammy, £245,824 from 332 sites. Total: £1,139,668

10. Chef, £77,588 from 108 sites. Total: £1,333,970

Other openers

Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania, £62,360 from 34 sites

Goltzius and the Pelican Company, £3,388 from 2 sites

Love Me Till Monday, £1,872 from 2 sites

1 Way Up, £300 from 2 sites

Bastards, £192 from 1 site

Thanks to Rentrak