Disney family title Lilo & Stitch and Paramount action film Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning square off at the UK-Ireland box office this weekend, in what exhibitors will hope is one of the highest-grossing weekends of the year.
Both titles are opening wide, and have built interest with extensive marketing campaigns and two days of previews, from Wednesday 21.
Box office takings are not expected to crack the weekend of July 21-23, 2023, when the Barbenheimer phenomenon brought in £29.4m from Barbie and Oppenheimer alone – the only occasion when two films have taken more than £10m on the same weekend in the territory.
However strong franchise awareness should boost both films beyond the £5m mark.
Lilo & Stitch opens in 689 venues for Disney, and has £1.6m already banked from its first two days.
Directed by Dean Fleischer Camp, the film is a live action-animation hybrid retelling of the popular Disney animation, about a lonely Hawaiian girl who befriends a runaway alien, that helps to mend her fragmented family.
It is the second Lilo & Stitch film to hit cinemas after 2002’s animated Lilo & Stitch, which opened to £1.5m and ended on a strong £13.2m.
US filmmaker Camp’s first fiction feature Marcel The Shell With Shoes On scored £362,263 in 2023 through Universal, as well as a long festival run and an Oscar nomination for best animated feature.
With final number of sites still to be confirmed, Paramount is opening Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning – reportedly the final title in the action franchise.
Tom Cruise returns as Impossible Missions Force agent Ethan Hunt, with the IMF team in a race against time to find the Entity, an artificial intelligence that could destroy mankind.
The Final Reckoning was filmed back-to-back with seventh title Dead Reckoning Part One; Christopher McQuarrie has directed and co-written each of the last four instalments in the franchise.
Dead Reckoning Part One is the highest-grossing title in the series to date, opening to £6.3m in July 2023 before ending on £26.6m.
2018’s Fallout, the prior title, did a similar £24.4m; while 2015’s Rogue Nation made £21.2m. Each of the last three Mission: Impossible releases have set a new high watermark for the series, which bodes well for The Final Reckoning.
Clever Scheme
With Cannes Film Festival still ongoing, the first Competition title hits UK-Ireland cinemas this weekend in the shape of Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme.
It opens in 355 cinemas through Universal – the widest live-action opening of Anderson’s career, ahead of Asteroid City (347 sites). Anderson’s 12th feature film centres on a wealthy businessman who appoints his only daughter – a nun – as sole heir to his estate; only for the duo to become the target of scheming tycoons, foreign terrorists and determined assassins.
It unites a starry cast of Anderson regulars and first-timers, including Benicio del Toro, Mia Threapleton, Michael Cera, Riz Ahmed, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Mathieu Amalric, Richard Ayoade, Jeffrey Wright, Scarlett Johansson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Rupert Friend, Hope Davis, Bill Murray, Charlotte Gainsbourg, F. Murray Abraham and Willem Dafoe.
The Grand Budapest Hotel remains his highest-grossing title in the territory, starting with £1.5m and ending on £11.5m. Asteroid City, his previous film, opened to £1.1m in June 2023, ending on £5m.
Modern Films is starting Runar Runarsson’s When The Light Breaks in 16 UK-Ireland sites. The opening film of last year’s Cannes Un Certain Regard section stars Elin Hall as a woman grappling with grief while harbouring a secret.
Art film distributor Seventh Art is playing Michelangelo: Love And Death in 51 cinemas this weekend, with £61,140 already in the bank since Tuesday and several sites still to report.
Further event cinema titles include Ballet To Broadway: Wheeldon Works in 220 screenings through Trafalgar Releasing, with £153,741 already banked; and The Sleeping Beauty – Paris Opera 2025 through Pathe.
Southeast Asian titles entering cinemas this weekend are Karan Sharma’s romantic comedy Bhool Chuk Maaf starring Rajkummar Rao and Wamiqa Gabbi, through Yash Raj Films; and Sangeeth Sivan’s comedy-horror Kapkapiii through Zee Studios.
Violet Pictures is releasing a 4K restoration of Les Blank’s 1982 documentary Burden of Dreams, about the making of Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo, in four sites; while Day For Night has Wei Liang Chiang and You Qiao Yin’s Singaporean-Taiwanese drama Mongrel in five.
Many holdovers will be squeezed out by the Lilo & Stich and The Final Reckoning arrival; but Warner Bros’ Final Destination: Bloodlines and Disney’s Thunderbolts* will still hope to find space.
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