Paramount’s Liam Neeson-led The Naked Gun leads this weekend’s UK-Ireland box office releases, starting in 632 cinemas.
The spoof comedy is a reboot of the Naked Gun series, which began with 1988’s The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!, grossing £7.8m.
It was followed by sequels The Naked Gun 2 ½ in 1991, making £8.8m, and The Naked Gun 33 1/3 in 1994, making £5.3m.
The new film sees Neeson as Lieutenant Frank Drebin Jr., son of the original films’ Frank Drebin, attempting to counter the evil plot of businessman Richard Cane, with the assistance of love interest Beth Davenport. Pamela Anderson and Danny Huston star alongside Neeson.
The film is directed by Akiva Schaffer, a former writer on US TV series Saturday Night Live, who previously directed 2016 mockumentary Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping.
Sony is starting occult horror Bring Her Back in 499 sites, having played previews since Saturday, July 26. It stars Sally Hawkins as a foster mother soon revealed to have ulterior motives. The A24 production is the second feature for Australian twin brothers Danny and Michael Philippou; their previous feature Talk To Me opened to £562,965 and grossed a total of £2.9m in 2022.
Entertainment Film Distributors is releasing The Legend of Ochi, Isaiah Saxon’s fantasy adventure starring Helena Zengel, Willem Dafoe, Emily Watson and Finn Wolfhard. Music video director Saxon’s debut feature follows Yuri, a young girl who discovers an abandoned baby of the mysterious Ochi species on the island of Carpathia and attempts to reunite it with its pack.
Berlin winner
Dag Johan Haugerud’s Berlinale Golden Bear winner Dreams will screen in 22 sites through Modern Films. It is part of the director’s trilogy along with Berlinale 2024 entry Sex and Venice 2024 title Love, both of which launch in the UK and Ireland later this month. Dreams follows a young girl who develops intense feelings for her female French teacher, only for her mother and grandmother to find her intimate writings.
Having won the Oscar for best documentary feature for 20 Days In Mariupol in 2024, Mstyslav Chernov returns with 2000 Meters to Andriivka, which records an attempt to liberate a Ukrainian village from Russian forces. 2000 Meters… debuted at Sundance in January, going on to play CPH:DOX, Karlovy Vary, and Cannes in its Three films for Ukraine sidebar. Dogwoof is releasing the film in 14 locations.
Met Film Distribution is opening Claude Barras’ stop-motion animation Savages in 75 cinemas. The film tells the story of a young girl living in Borneo who befriends an orphaned orangutan named Oshi whilst protesting deforestation. Barras’ 2017 Oscar-nominated My Life as a Courgette grossed a total of £186,639.
Indian action comedy Son of Sardaar 2 opens in 133 screens this weekend via Moviegoers Entertainment. The sequel to the 2012 film sees Ajay Devgn return as Jassi Randhawa, who becomes accidentally embroiled in mob activity during a Sikh wedding after attempting to reunite with his wife in Scotland.
Vertigo Releasing has two titles: Petra Volpe’s Berlin 2025 selection Late Shift, a medical drama starring Leonie Benesch as a nurse on an understaffed hospital ward; and 40 Acres, R.T. Thorne’s post-apocalyptic film in which a family of Black Canadian farmers descended from US Civil War immigrants defend their property against cannibals.
Dreamz Entertainment also has multiple releases: Kingdom, in which an undercover policeman is planted in Sri Lanka only to find his target is his estranged brother; horror comedy SU From SO; and animation Mahavatar Narsimha.
K-pop concert film BTS Army: Forever We Are Young opens in 156 cinemas through Trafalgar Releasing.
Further releases include Shazia Iqbal’s Dhadak 2, a sequel to the 2018 romance, through Zee Studios; and Kaleidoscope’s Heidi: Rescue of the Lynx.
Key holdovers include Warner Bros’ Superman, Disney’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps and Universal’s The Bad Guys 2.
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