Matthew Vaughn’s spy thriller Argylle is the widest opener at this weekend’s UK-Ireland box office in 626 cinemas, with Universal looking to emulate previous successes from the British director.
Directed by Vaughn from a script by Jason Fuchs, Argylle follows a reclusive author of spy novels, who realises the plot of her new book is starting to mirror real world events.
Henry Cavill, pop star Dua Lipa, Ariana DeBose, Bryce Dallas Howard, John Cena, Sam Rockwell, Catherine O’Hara, Samuel L. Jason, Bryan Cranston, Sofia Boutella, Louis Partridge and Richard E. Grant are on a star-studded cast list.
Vaughn broke out at the turn of the century as producer of Guy Ritchie’s Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (£11.8m) and Snatch (£12.4m). It is his eighth feature as director, having started with 2004’s Layer Cake (£4.4m). His highest-grossing title is 2014’s X-Men: Days Of Future Past; while he also scored hits with 2014 comedy spy title Kingsman: The Secret Service (£16.6m) and 2017 sequel Kingsman: The Golden Circle (£24.9m) – a positive sign for Argylle, which exists in the same genre.
Universal has the two wide releases of the weekend, also opening Benjamin Renner’s animation Migration in 604 cinemas.
With a screenplay by The White Lotus creator Mike White, Migration follows a family of ducks who try to convince their overprotective father to go on the vacation of a lifetime. Initial footage was shown to the animation-savvy audience at last year’s Annecy animation film festival.
Migration is the latest title from Universal-owned animation stalwarts Illumination, which has an average worldwide gross of $711m-per-film on its 14 features to date. It had a $1.4bn mega-hit last year with The Super Mario Bros. Movie (£54.7m in the UK and Ireland, the fourth-highest-grossing 2023 release), and is behind the Despicable Me franchise, the highest-grossing animated film series of all time with $4.6bn across five films.
Four of those five films hold places 57 through 60 on the all-time UK-Ireland chart, each taking between £47m-£48m. As an original title, Migration won’t hit such heights; but the audience for Illumination films remains strong.
Awards contenders
Two significant players in the ongoing awards season start their UK-Ireland theatrical runs this weekend.
Curzon is making its widest-ever opening with Cord Jefferson’s American Fiction starting in 187 cinemas, with almost £100,000 already banked through previews. Jeffrey Wright stars as a novelist fed up with the establishment profiting from Black entertainment, who writes a book under a pen name that sends him into the madness he distains.
Based on Percival Everett’s 2001 novel Erasure, the film debuted at Toronto last year, taking the coveted People’s Choice award. The winner of that prize has been nominated for best picture at the Oscar in 15 of the last 16 years, winning on five occasions, most recently with Chloe Zhao’s Nomadland in 2020.
American Fiction has fulfilled the first part of that prophecy, with best picture one of its five Oscar nominations, alongside best actor for Wright, best supporting actor for Sterling K. Brown, and best adapted screenplay for Jefferson; the latter category was its sole nomination at the Baftas.
A24 is opening Jonathan Glazer’s Holocaust drama The Zone of Interest in around 100 cinemas. Glazer’s first film in a decade is loosely based on Martin Amis’ 2014 novel of the same name, and depicts the lives of Nazi commandant Rudolf Hoss and his family, just outside the walls of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
It won the Grand Prix on debut in Cannes Competition last year; and is considered a frontrunner in best international feature/film not in the English language categories, where it has nominations at both the Oscars and Baftas.
It is the first UK nominee in the Oscars category since Paul Morrison’s Solomon & Gaenor for the 2000 awards; should it win, it would become the first UK entry ever to take that prize. German actress Sandra Huller has been praised for her supporting role as Hoss’ wife Hedwig, with a Bafta nomination as well as her leading actress nomination for Anatomy Of A Fall.
Seemingly unaffected by their relative infrequency, Glazer’s films have increased takings each time, from 2001’s Sexy Beast (£774,942), through 2004’s Birth (£1.18m) and 2013’s Under The Skin (£1.19m).
Following an event cinema release on Thursday, February 1, CinemaLive is playing Kinky Boots – The Musical in 358 cinemas – a wide enough release to allow for a strong showing for the title, which is based on the 2005 UK film of the same name (£3.1m total).
Park Circus is starting two repertory titles this weekend: Gil Junger’s 1999 romantic comedy 10 Things I Hate About You in 88 sites, adding a further 153 the following weekend in the lead-up to Valentine’s Day; and Terrence Malick’s Days Of Heaven in nine sites.
Limited releases include Kim Longinotto and Franky Murray Brown’s Dalton’s Dream, about the final winner of The X Factor UK singing competition, in one site through Dogwoof.
Argylle should have enough to top the charts; key competition from holdovers will come from Paramount’s Mean Girls, Warner Bros’ Wonka and Disney’s All Of Us Strangers, which made a strong start last time out.
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