‘28 Years Later: The Bone Temple’ opens with £2.4m at UK-Ireland box office; ‘The Housemaid’ stays top

Zombie horror 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple opened to a healthy £2.4m at the UK-Ireland box office as The Housemaid continued its excellent run by holding on to top spot.

Lionsgate thriller The Housemaid added £2.8m on its fourth weekend – a drop of just 20% on its previous session.

Paul Feig’s film took just 8% less than its opening weekend, with the film demonstrating strong staying power in a competitive market.

The film is up to a hefty £22.6m, more than seven times its opening weekend. It is Lionsgate’s sixth-highest grossing film of all time in the territory, behind the four original The Hunger Games films and La La Land; and should overtake the original The Hunger Games (£24.1m) in the next week.

Universal’s Hamnet posted the best hold in the top five this weekend, falling just 15% on its second session with £2.6m.

The film is up to a strong £8.4m already, above current awards contenders Sinners, One Battle After Another and Marty Supreme at the same stage, as well as previous awards titles The Favourite and A Complete Unknown, and topping the £7.6m cume of Poor Things.

Nia DaCosta’s The Bone Temple started with £2.4m from 666 sites at a £3,633 site average for Sony. This was down on the £3.9m start and £5,483 average of last year’s 28 Years Later; although The Bone Temple’s 18 rating will have put restrictions on audience figures, compared to the 15 for 28 Years Later.

It is a second-biggest box office opening for US director DaCosta, behind 2023’s The Marvels (£3.5m).

Former number one Avatar: Fire And Ash added £1.7m on its fifth session for Disney – a 35% drop that brought it to £38.3m. For comparison, previous title The Way Of Water was still top on its fifth weekend, with a £4.2m session and £63.5m running total, on its way to a £77.4m lifetime.

Entertainment Film Distributors’ Marty Supreme was another awards contender to post a decent hold, falling 29% across its fourth session.

The Timothee Chalamet-starring film added £1.5m to reach £11.9m total, and will overtake the £12.4m of last year’s A Complete Unknown, also starring Chalamet, this week.

The top five titles all made over £1m for the fourth weekend in a row, as January continued its good form for UK-Ireland exhibitors. Total top five takings were £11m – down 11% on the previous weekend, but still up 52% on the equivalent weekend from last year.

More to follow.

• 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple starts with $29m at global box office; Avatar: Fire And Ash passes $1.3bn