‘Weapons’ top for third weekend as UK-Ireland box office stagnates; 'Eddington', 'The Life of Chuck' miss the top five

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Warner Bros’ Weapons topped the UK-Ireland box office for a third successive weekend, as the top five titles remained the same as last weekend and dropped to a lowest cumulative total since 2022.

Weapons added £1.1m on its third session – a 26% drop that brings it to £8.9m (all total figures include Bank Holiday Monday). It will pass the £10m mark in the next fortnight – an excellent result for an 18-rated title, and a clear bright spot amid a tough August.

Disney comedy Freakier Friday dropped just 19% on its third weekend, with £740,432 taking beyond the £6m mark. It should overtake the £6.6m of 2003’s Freaky Friday, also starring Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis, within the next week.

Sony romantic comedy Materialists added £554,097 on its second session – a 33% drop that brings it to £2.7m total, closing in on the £3.1m of director Celine Song’s Past Lives from 2023.

The Bad Guys 2 moved up a place in the chart for Universal, dropping just 6% on its fifth weekend with £510,810 bringing it to a £10.4m total. A long tail would give it an outside chance of catching the £13.8m of 2022’s The Bad Guys.

Disney’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps hangs on in the top five, also after five weekends. The Marvel Cinematic Universe title added £507,819 – a 26% drop that brings it to £22.2m total, the 22^nd -highest-grossing of 36 MCU films.

Neither Universal’s Eddington nor Studiocanal’s The Life of Chuck managed to break into the top five on their opening weekends – full figures below.

It has been a tough August for UK-Ireland cinemas. Takings for the top five dropped for the fourth consecutive weekend, by 24% to £3.5m. The top five figure is also down a sizeable 56% on the Bank Holiday weekend from last year; at its lowest level since 2022 (9% up), and 16% down on the 2021 Bank Holiday, when cinemas were only a few months into the post-pandemic reopening.

Disney comedy The Roses starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman; and Darren Aronofsky’s Sony crime comedy Caught Stealing will need to perform well next weekend to get the figures back on track after a good first half to the year.

Netflix had two films in UK-Ireland cinemas this weekend: The Thursday Murder Club and KPop Demon Hunters A Sing-Along Event, the latter on Saturday and Sunday screenings. The streamer does not report box office takings; Screen understands there was strong attendance for both titles, especially the limited release for The Thursday Murder Club.

Chuck, Eddington  start out

The Naked Gun leads Paramount’s slate, adding £392,000 on its fourth session – a 26% drop that brought it to £6.7m total. The £7.8m of 1989’s The Naked Gun may still just be in reach, although the £8.8m of 1991’s The Naked Gun 2 ½: The Smell Of Fear will be tougher to catch.

The Life Of Chuck, winner of Toronto Film Festival’s prestigious People’s Choice award last year, opened to £312,931 from 622 sites at a £503 average for Studiocanal. Including previews and Monday, the film has £572,535 in total.

Jurassic World Rebirth has now played through eight weekends for Universal. The dinosaur drama added £263,048 on its latest session – a moderate drop of just 21%, that took it past the £35m mark. It will pass the £35.1m of 2022’s Jurassic World: Dominion, the lowest of the three Jurassic World titles, in the next week.

Universal’s Nobody 2 dropped 48% on its second weekend, with £247,770 taking it to £1.2m total, with the £1.4m of the 2021 first film likely overtaken in the next week.

Horror Together  starring Dave Franco and Alison Brie brought in £236,794 on its second weekend. This drop of 49% brought the film to £1.2m in total for Entertainment Film Distributors.

Superman dropped 30% on its seventh weekend in cinemas for Warner Bros, with £226,527 taking it to £27.5m total.

Ari Aster’s Cannes title Eddington began with £208,322 from 431 sites at a low £489 site average for Universal. It was just ahead of the £202,254 start of Aster’s previous film Beau Is Afraid from 2023, although that opened in just 241 sites. Including previews and Monday, Eddington has £298,888.

A 50^th anniversary re-release of The Rocky Horror Picture Show by Disney brought in £161,464 on its opening weekend, with £180,904 including Monday. A 2011 re-issue by Fox made £740,398.

Yungblud. Are You Ready, Boy?, the latest music title from Trafalgar Releasing, took £131,972 at the weekend from 185 sites at a decent £713 average. It has £315,990 in total.

Another re-release, Universal’s Six The Musical, took £127,918 from 466 sites at a 520 average. The musical film has £6.1m in total, having first played in cinemas in April this year.

New distributor Kazoo Films made its first release with German family animation Grand Prix of Europe. The title took £108,000 from 491 cinemas at a £220 average, and has just over £150,000 in total.

Smurfs added £88,000 on its fifth weekend for Paramount – a drop of just 12% that brought it to £5.1m total.

F1: The Movie raced past the £22m mark for Warner Bros, adding £83,854 on its ninth weekend.

Romance Saiyaara marches on as the highest-grossing Indian film of the past two calendar years, now crossing the £3m mark. The Yash Raj Films release added £66,392 on its sixth weekend in cinemas – a 30% drop – and has £3.1m in total, as the third-highest-grossing Indian film ever in the territory.

The distributor also has action title War 2, which dropped 78% on its second weekend with £65,149 contributing to a £699,538 total to date – another decent performance.

Eva Victor’s Sorry, Baby scored the highest site average for a new title this weekend, with £1,016 – a strong result for an independent release. The Picturehouse Entertainment film brought it £52,500 at the weekend, and has £96,275 in total.

How To Train Your Dragon dropped just 25% on its 11^th weekend in cinemas for Universal with £48,890, and has £22.8m in total.

The second weekend of the Princess Mononoke re-release for Elysian Film Distribution added £35,347 from just 26 Imax venues, with a running total of £321,749.

Ahead of the sequel later this year, Sony’s re-release of This Is Spinal Tap took £32,631 at the weekend and has £53,646 in total.

A Bank Holiday weekend re-issue of animation Dog Man brought in £25,738 for Universal, taking the film to £13.8m after its initial release at the start of the year.

Chinese action thriller Dongji Rescue started with a £12,319 weekend for Trinity Film from 66 venues at a £187 average, and has £42,778 in total.

The Philippou brothers’ horror Bring Her Back is heading towards the end of its run, adding £11,539 on its fourth session to hit £1.8m total.

The Ballad of Wallis Island  is finally approaching the end of its song after 13 weekends in cinemas for Universal. The music comedy added £11,165 on its latest session, and has a strong £2.4m total – an excellent result from its opening weekend of just £127,719 at the end of May. 

BFI Distribution’s Battleship Potemkin re-release took £5,652 at the weekend, predominantly from one- or two-day bookings; and has £11,500 in total.

Sex brought in £2,616 at UK-Ireland cinemas, with £11,170 including Monday and previews. Its release rounds out Dag Johan Haugerud’s trilogy alongside Love  and Dreams, all distributed across the past month by Modern Films.

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