Mamma Mia 2, Incredibles 2 Set Huge Records | Box Office Report 24-26th August 2018
Major new releases BlackKklansman and The Spy Who Dumped Me couldn’t do enough to break the big budget, studio-driven top 5 films at the UK box office from last week, ensuring that the same top 5 were in place again this week. Here’s what made the list and how much each film made in the region over the weekend of 24-26th August 2018:
The biggest news from the weekend is not the continued success of Disney’s Christopher Robin, but instead the prolonged box office success of Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again! which this week took another £1.7million to take its overall total to £58,748,746, the 2nd highest total of 2018 so far, and closing on the number 1 movie of the year Avengers: Infinity War. Here are the top 5 highest grossing movies of 2018 thus far in the UK:
- Avengers: Infinity War – £70,168,399
- Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again! – £58,748,736
- Incredibles 2 – £51,229,806
- Black Panther – £50,379,585
- Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom – £41,281,227
Sitting around £12.3million behind Infinity War, Mamma Mia 2 may still be able to catch the Marvel juggernaut should it have the same quality hold that occurred with The Greatest Showman earlier this year (which was still in the top 5 chart in April 4 months after its release). The signs are so far very good for it to be at least a close call, with the movie maintaining weekend takings of close to £2million in even now in its 6th week of release, with its current box office drops indicating it should be at least 3 more weekends until the film drops below the £1million mark.
Bear in mind, this is just for the Friday-Sunday period.
A sensible projection based on the data gathered so far would indicate that Mamma Mia 2 would maintain a strong hold next weekend with more significant drop offs in the weeks that follow because of the conclusion to the summer holidays. The following is a conservative projection of the film’s expected earnings in the next three weeks:
- Next weekend: £1.5million
— Mid week profits equate to an addition of 40-60% of weekend total. Here: £750,000 - Weekend 2: £1.2million
— £600,000 - Weekend 3: £1million
— £500,000 - Total: £5.55million
Should the film earn as much as the projection indicates, Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again will be sitting on £64.35million by mid-September without yet having ducked below the £1million weekend accumulation mark. This indicates that it’s quite possible that the musical will oust the superhero team-up event movie for the top spot by the end of 2018 and should at least run Infinity War very close for the top spot on our annual chart. With the first Mamma Mia movie being such a huge hit (gathering a total takings of £68.3million), it was expected that the long-awaited sequel would perform, but should it overcome the juggernaut of Disney Marvel, it will provide one of the shocks of the decade as far as high grosses go and would become one of the 10 highest grossing movies in UK box office history.
You may have also noticed that Disney Pixar’s Incredibles 2 has moved up the annual chart this week, surpassing Black Panther with the help of a £1,268,615 weekend to be sitting pretty in 3rd place with £51,229,806. This makes Incredibles 2 the 2nd highest grossing animated movie of all time in the UK behind fellow Pixar release Toy Story 3, which earned around £74million (a total this 2018 sequel will almost certainly not catch). It also marks a return to the top of the animated box office chart for Disney who last year relinquished their throne to Illumination Entertainment and Despicable Me 3 which incidentally earned £46.5million across the course of last summer.
The sequel 15 years in the making has now earned $1.142billion worldwide, making it the 3rd highest grossing animated movie in worldwide box office history, way behind Frozen (2013) and only $25million short of Minions (2015). It does however boast the highest North American gross of any animated movie in history with $597million earned across its entire run in the region.
The top 15 highest earning movies at the UK box office for the weekend of 24-26th August 2018:
- Christopher Robin – weeks on release: 1 – weekend: £2,138,824 – total: £7,184,365
- Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again! – 6 – £1,701,162 – £58,748,746
- The Meg – 3 – £1,502,535 – £11,734,530
- Incredibles 2 – 7 – £1,268,401 – £51,229,806
- The Equalizer 2 – 2 – £1,256,615 – £4,558,724
- BlackKklansman – 1 – £1,234,214- £1,234,214
- The Spy Who Dumped Me – 1 – £1,057,211 – £1,057,211
- Mission: Impossible – Fallout – 5 – £924,424 – £21,855,333
- Hotel Transylvania 3: A Monster Vacation – 5 – £910,555 – £15,966,398
- Ant-Man and The Wasp – 4 – £794,409 – £15,470,066
- The Children Act – 1 – £517,378 – £517,378
- The Festival – 2 – £458,095 – £2,540,465
- Romeo + Juliet (Secret Cinema) – 1 – £457,323 – £457,323
- Slenderman – 1 – £389,339 – £389,339
- Alpha – 1 – £225,606 – £225,606
Sifting their way into the chart right at the end of Summer season were 6 brand new releases with BlackKklansman and The Spy Who Dumped Me performing best at numbers 6 and 7 on the weekend chart.
BlackKklansman actually had the benefit of extended previews starting as early as Monday, but it wasn’t enough to break the big budget seal on the top 5, though it was working from a much less advantageous position so far as production and promotional budgets go. The Spy Who Dumped Me actually performed more strongly over the course of the weekend as it didn’t have the advantage of previews, yet its £1million total wasn’t enough to boost it beyond number 7 in its debut; not a great sign for Lionsgate who had banked on the late summer female comedy replicating the success of the likes of Girls Trip and Bad Moms in recent years.
Right at the bottom of the chart is Slenderman which actually debuted a little better than its position may indicate. The £389,339 earned by the movie across its opening weekend isn’t the sort of total to shout home about, but it is enough to earn at least a top 10 spot in most weekend charts throughout the year. With a budget of just $10million and a total of $33million already earned worldwide, it shan’t matter all that much to distributors Sony Pictures who will still see a tidy profit from the horror movie.
In other news, Hotel Transylvania 3 looks set to out-gross Ant-Man and The Wasp during its run at the UK box office, with the animated feature earning more money this weekend despite being out a weekend longer and having already earned more money in total. The returns of both films will likely surpass £16million, a total that is hardly good news but certainly won’t be taken as failure by their respective studios. Ant-Man 2 has now officially surpassed Ant-Man 1 in terms of its overall gross at the UK box office and has finally out-grossed its predecessor worldwide too.
And finally, Mission: Impossible – Fallout is now the highest grossing movie of the franchise in the UK having surpassed the £20million earned by Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation. MI6 is released in China this weekend and distributors Paramount will be hoping for a big return in the region given the popularity of Tom Cruise. They’ll need it, because currently Fallout is only the 3rd highest grossing of the franchise, with the 4th instalment Ghost Protocol being the highest and Rogue Nation being 2nd. Should it fail to at least surpass Rogue Nation, Paramount may begin to ask questions as regards the audience’s desire to see more M:I films given the down-turn in financial returns over the past 3 movies. More on that next week…
For now, be sure to subscribe to us on YouTube and like us on Facebook if you’d like them posted directly to your timeline. You can also support The Film Magazine and the ability to provide articles like this for free by simply following us on Twitter and bookmarking our homepage. Next week, the box office report will be covering developments with Mamma Mia 2 and Incredibles 2 as regards their potentially record setting runs and there’ll be no major studio releases to welcome so it’ll be interesting to see which film tops the chart for this coming weekend.
