Maggie Smith vehicle The Lady in the Van makes tracks at the UK box office

Maggie Smith kicks box-office butt

It was English national treasures (Maggie Smith, Alan Bennett) v American brainiacs (Aaron Sorkin, Steve Jobs) at the UK box office this week, with the former scoring a convincing victory. The Lady in the Van opened with a very healthy £2.26m, as against £913,000 for Steve Jobs.

The number compares very well with the last film adaptation of a Bennett play: The History Boys debuted with £795,000 in 2006, on its way to a total of £4.34m. Much of the difference can be attributed to the box-office power of Smith, who supported the film with an appearance on the Graham Norton Show, her first chatshow appearance in four decades. The film had a very defined (older) audience, which the distributor Sony was able to target with marketing.

The debut number is similar to the opening frame of older-skewing titles such as The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (£2.22m) and The Iron Lady (£2.15m), and ahead of Philomena (£1.51m) and Suffragette (£1.55m, excluding hefty previews). Sony reports a high number of tickets purchased at senior discount, and expects the proportion to rise on weekdays, when the older audience tends to be especially active.

The Steve Jobs number can be compared with the UK debut of £2.49m, including £383,000 in previews, of the Sorkin-scripted The Social Network. It’s perhaps fair to say that the story of Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg is relatable to more people than the story of Apple and Steve Jobs. The release of The Social Network, in 2010, was also arguably more timely.

Spectre pushes towards £80m

By most measures, third-weekend takings for Spectre of £7.83m are pretty impressive. Only in comparison to Skyfall, which grossed £10.45m in its third frame, does the Spectre number suffer. After 21 days, Spectre has grossed a hefty £77.6m. Skyfall had reached a very similar £77.3m at the same stage of its run.

Skyfall went on to achieve a remarkable £102.9m, and you might say that Spectre looks on course to reach a similar number. One fly in the ointment is that Spectre’s grosses are more front-loaded, with successive weekly declines of 34% and 40%. The equivalent drops for Skyfall were 20% and 35%. In other words, Spectre is, so far, tailing off quicker.

Spectre is already the fourth-biggest hit of all time in the UK, behind only Skyfall, Avatar (£94.0m) and Titanic (£80.1m, including the 3D re-release). Next come Toy Story 3 (£74.0m) and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (£73.1m).

Spectre faces a significant challenge from this Thursday, with the arrival of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2. Skyfall faced an equivalent blockbuster challenge (The Twilight Saga – Breaking Dawn Part 2) in its fourth week of release, dropping 47% from the previous frame.

The flop

Released by Warners into 102 cinemas, Fathers and Daughters, starring Russell Crowe, Amanda Seyfried and Aaron Paul, landed belly-up in 24th place, with just £25,200. Its screen average was a very poor £247. Crowe has had an uneven run lately: his last film, The Water Diviner, opened here with a weak £522,000 from a wide 420 cinemas. In February 2014, he played a key supporting role in A New York Winter’s Tale, which began with £258,000 from 327 venues. In between, he proved much more appealing in Noah, which opened with £2.51m.

The Hindi hits

With Diwali falling last Wednesday, several new Hindi films were positioned for audiences, notably Prem Ratan Dhan Payo, starring Salman Khan and Sonam Kapoor. The film’s debut of £725,000, plus previews of £187,000, is the biggest for a Bollywood title since Bajrangi Bhaijaan opened with £758,000 in July. Before that, you’d have to go December 2013 and Dhoom 3’s debut of £885,000. If you add in the previews, Prem Ratan Dhan Payo has the edge on those earlier openings.

The big fallers

Several films that opened weakly the previous weekend predictably tumbled down the chart. Burnt, starring Bradley Cooper as a troubled chef, fell by 61%, dipping from fifth to 10th place. Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse fared worse, dropping by 70%. He Named Me Malala, which had launched with a rather ambitious rollout into 203 cinemas, shed a number of those venues and dropped 82% in box-office revenue. Kill Your Friends, starring Nicholas Hoult as an amoral A&R music executive, plunged by 87%, contracting from 169 cinemas to 58. All these films look set to lose further screens and showtimes from this Friday.

The future

Thanks to continuing business from Spectre and a nice assist from Maggie Smith, the market overall delivered a 21% uptick on the equivalent weekend from 2014, when Interstellar continued at the top spot and The Imitation Game was the top new release. A year ago, the next frame saw the arrival of The Hunger Games – Mockingjay: Part 1, and Lionsgate has picked the same slot for the series finale. Going by the box-office performance of other YA franchises when the final book was split into two films, expect Mockingjay: Part 2 to out-perform its predecessor. Other distributors are predictably running scared, but The Dressmaker, in which The Hunger Games’ Liam Hemsworth stars opposite Kate Winslet, may pick up some fans of the actor eager for second helpings. Gaspar Noe’s 3D arthouse porn film Love enjoys a special “Come Together” premiere in screens nationwide on Wednesday, featuring a filmed interview with the director, ahead of its regular release at a more targeted set of venues from Friday.

Top 10 films 13-15 November

1. Spectre, £7,833,891 from 617 sites. Total: £77,579,879
2. The Lady in the Van, £2,256,121 from 523 sites (new)
3. Hotel Transylvania 2, £912,896 from 548 sites. Total: £18,559,789
4. Prem Ratan Dhan Payo, £911,942 from 140 sites (new)
5. Steve Jobs, £903,214 from 413 sites (new)
6. Brooklyn, £782,363 from 434 sites. Total: £2,782,461
7. Pan, £485,702 from 475 sites. Total: £8,416,089
8. The Martian, £295,607 from 274 sites. Total: £23,106,801
9. Suffragette, £255,578 from 366 sites. Total: £9,248,554
10. Burnt, £174,802 from 317 sites. Total: £944,610

Other openers

Vedalam, £135,584 (including £55,263 previews) from 48 sites
The Hallow, £51,742 (including £3,759 previews) from 46 sites
Thoongaavanam, £38,908 (including £10,586 previews) from 21 sites
Laurel & Hardy: The Music Box & Block-Heads, £30,194 from 76 sites
Amar Akbar Anthony, £29,479 (including £16,525 previews) from 31 sites
Fathers and Daughters, £25,199 from 102 sites

A Christmas Star, £24,142 (including £5,036 previews) from 64 sites
Tangerine, £18,611 from 15 sites
Angels vs Bullies, £11,482 (including £6,365 previews) from nine sites
Ali Baba and the Seven Dwarfs, £4,681 from one site
Akhil, £3,591 from four sites
Closer to the Moon, £3,548 (including £3,269 previews) from one site
The Fear of 13, £2,621 (including £1,273 previews) from three sites
Warriors, £1,530 from one site
Tell Spring Not to Come This Year, £827 from two sites

• Thanks to Rentrak