blue beetle

Source: Warner Bros

‘Blue Beetle’

RankFilm (distributor)Three-day gross (Aug 18-20)Total gross to date                          Week
 1. Barbie  (Warner Bros) £2.7m £84.8m 5
 2. Oppenheimer  (Universal) £2m £50.1m 5
 3. Blue Beetle (Warner Bros)  £1.2m £1.2m 1
 4. Meg 2: The Trench  (Warner Bros) £969,140 £9.8m 3
 5. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem  (Paramount) £586,000 £7m 3

The latest DC superhero Blue Beetle opened with a gross of £1.2m at the UK and Ireland box office but failed to fend off ’Barbenheimer’ from the top spots in their fifth weekend. 

Barbie collected £2.7m for Warner Bros over the weekend to bring its total to £84.8m. The Greta Gerwig blockbuster has now overtaken Titanic (£82.7m); Star Wars: The Last Jedi (£82.7m); and Top Gun Maverick (£83.7m) to become the eighth highest-grossing film of all time in the UK.

Hot on its heels was Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer which has crossed the £50m after nabbing another £2m, just a 38% drop on its previous session. The biopic has now surpassed Nolan’s 2008 film The Dark Knight (£49.3m) and edges ever closer to the director’s biggest UK hit Dunkirk (£56.8m).

Debuting in third place was Blue Beetle which opened in 556 cinemas. Its £1.2m box office was considerably down on other recent DC releases including The Flash which debuted with £3.2m in June and Shazam! Fury Of Gods which topped the charts at £2.4m in March.

The film is directed by Angel Manuel Soto and follows a young man who is bestowed with superhero abilities by an alien scarab. The cast is led by Xolo Mariduena with Bruna Marquezine, Damian Alcazar, George Lopez and Adriana Barraza.

In its third session, Meg 2: The Trench  dropped 40% to make £969,140 for Warner Bros as its total creeps up to nearly £10m.

Dipping just 26% was Paramount’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem which collected £586,000 to push the animated action over the £7m mark.

Stray start 

Disney’s Haunted Mansion fell 48% in its second weekend for a £2.3m cume.

Strays

Source: Universal Pictures

‘Strays’

Opening in seventh place was Universal’s family film Strays with £509,015 (£598,619 including previews) from 492 sites. The film follows a group of foul-mouthed stray dogs who take revenge on one of their former owners. The voice cast is headed by Will Ferrell, Jamie Fox, Isla Fisher and Sofia Vergara.

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One has become the highest-grossing Mission Impossible film in the UK with a box office of nearly £25m for Paramount. The Tom Cruise blockbuster directed by Christopher McQuarrie dropped just 31% in its sixth weekend at £392,000.

Disney’s Elemental enjoyed a dip of just 13%  in its seventh session after the Pixar animation added another £387,000 to its £16.1m total.

Sony’s Gran Turismo: Based On A True Story grossed £313,762 and stands at just shy of £2m after two weeks of play.

For Trafalgar Releasing, concert film Metallica: M72 World Tour Live From TX #1 grossed £201,115 after opening on Saturday (Aug 19) in 380 cinemas. 

Bollywood title Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani made £186,726 in its fourth weekend for Moviegoers Entertainment. With a total cume of £1.7m, it’s now the 13th highest-grossing Hindi-language film released in the UK. 

It was another good run for Altitude’s Talk To Me which dropped just 22% with £118,000 to take its cume over £2m.

Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny surpassed £20m in its eighth weekend after making another £54,000.

Trafalgar Releasing’s The Hiding Place has made a total of £48,691 since opening on Thursday (August 17). The filmed stage musical follows a family caught for hiding hundreds of Jewish refugees. 

Fellow event releaseTurandot - Arena Di Verona from CinemaLive also opened on Thursday and has grossed £30,232 from 80 cinemas so far.

For Sony, Insidious: The Red Door added £36,361 and stands at just under £8m.

Curzon’s L’Immensita made £24,341 in its second weekend, bringing its total to £77,299.

Park Circus’ 50th-anniversary re-release of Sidney Lumet’s Serpico opened with £20,635. 

Sony’s Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse made £19,847 to bring its total to £30.5m.

Curzon’s 25th-anniversary release of Lars von Trier’s comedy The Idiots opened with £1,783. 

Olivier Peyon’s Lie With Me made £10,071, including previews, for Peccadillo Pictures. The French drama, which follows an author returning to his hometown, played at various festivals including Angouleme and BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival.