‘Smurfs’, ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ falter at UK-Ireland box office; ‘Superman’ tops £16m

GBP to USD conversion rate: 1.35

Opening titles Smurfs and I Know What You Did Last Summer stumbled at the UK-Ireland box office; but there was better news for holdovers including number one Superman.

Warner Bros’ Superman dropped just 30% on its second weekend, with £4.9m taking it to a £16.4m total. The first in a new series of DC Comics adaptations, it has already grossed more than the totals of eight of the 15 titles from the previous DC Extended Universe; and will overtake 2017’s Justice League  (£17.4m) this week.

With wet weather across much of the territory this weekend in contrast to the sunshine of the weekend before, several holdover titles saw increases in their weekend-on-weekend takings.

Universal’s Jurassic World Rebirth saw a 2% uptick on its third session with £3.3m. The dinosaur blockbuster is now up to £24.9m, and while the first two Jurassic World films will be beyond it, a strong tail could still see it catch the £35.1m of 2022’s Jurassic World: Dominion.

Warner Bros’ F1: The Movie sped to an 8% increase on its fourth weekend, with a £1.3m session and £18.2m total. Among driving-themed films, it has passed 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road  (£17.5m) and will soon overtake 2011’s Fast & Furious 5 (£18.5m) and 2019’s Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw  (£20.7m).

Paramount’s Smurfs took fourth place on its opening weekend, with a £1.2m session, with marginally more including previews. The animation took a £2,013 location average from 596 sites.

Sony’s I Know What You Did Last Summer remake opened to £941,968 from 502 cinemas at a £1,876 average. It now faces a challenge to match the £4.4m of the original film from 1997, although should catch the £2.7m of its 1999 sequel.

Takings for the top five dropped by 7% to £11.6m; although are up by 2% on the equivalent weekend from last year. The blockbusters continue next weekend with Disney’s latest Marvel offering, The Fantastic Four: First Steps and Universal animation The Bad Guys 2.

Dragon, Ballad increase takings

Despite dropping out of the top five on its sixth weekend in cinemas, Universal’s live-action How To Train Your Dragon remake posted a 16% uptick. The film added £675,900 to hit £20.5m, overtaking the £20.1m of 2019’s animated How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World and behind only 2014’s How To Train Your Dragon 2 (£27.6m) in the franchise.

Danny Boyle’s 28 Years Later dropped just 12% on its fifth weekend, with £438,640 bringing it to £14.7m for Sony. It has overtaken fellow zombie film World War Z  (£14.6m) from 2013; and should catch 2004 vampire title Van Helsing  (£15.1m) in the next week.

Original animation Elio  leads Disney’s slate, and experienced an impressive 28% boost on its fifth session with £307,000 taking it just past the £4m mark.

Disney live-action remake Lilo & Stitch added £196,000 on its ninth session in cinemas – a 23% increase that brought it to £36.4m total.

Andrew DeYoung’s US comedy Friendship starring Tim Robinson and Paul Rudd started with £180,000 from 161 sites at a £1,118 average for Paramount.

Punjabi comedy Sarbala Ji made a good start for Bakrania Media, with £88,022 from 65 sites at a £1,354 site average.

James Griffiths’ music-themed comedy The Ballad of Wallis Island  posted an excellent 57% increase on its eighth weekend in cinemas, with £72,651 taking it just beyond the £2m mark – a hit for UK producer Rupert Majendie of Baby Cow Productions and distributor Universal.

Park Circus’s 50^th anniversary re-release of Stanley Kubrick’s 185-minute Barry Lyndon took a decent £60,823 from 63 sites at a £965 average.

Irish romantic drama Four Letters Of Love started with £54,596 from 144 sites at a £379 average for Vertigo Releasing, and has £58,059 including one preview.

Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt is hanging on in cinemas, with Paramount’s Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning increasing by 1% on its ninth weekend with £49,583 taking it to £26.1m for Paramount.

The Salt Path is approaching the end of its road for Black Bear, dropping 49% on its eighth weekend with £19,000 bringing it to just shy of £8m total.

Mubi’s Harvest began with £15,396 from 29 sites at a £531 average, and has £40,672 inlcuding previews.

Universal’s doll horror M3GAN 2.0 did not experience the boosts seen elsewhere, dropping 63% on its fourth weekend with £9,170 bringing it to £1.2m.

A BFI Distribution re-release of 1999 comedy Human Traffic made £4,675 at the weekend, and has £14,511 including previews from the middle of last week.

Experimental biopic The Ballad Of Suzanne Césaire opened to £1,854 from three sites for T A P E Collective, and has £1,976 including previews.

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