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The winner
Although it didn't live up to some of the more extravagant hype about its box-office prospects, Michael Jackson's This Is It opened with £4.88m including Wednesday and Thursday previews. After five days, it's already the second-biggest documentary of all time in the UK, behind the lifetime total of Fahrenheit 9/11 (£6.54m), and pushing March of the Penguins (£3.31m) into third place. This Is It has snatched In Bed With Madonna's long-held crown as the UK's biggest ever concert movie – that 1991 doc grossed £1.25m here. All in all, an impressive result for a film pieced together out of rehearsal footage.
The Halloween factor
This Is It might have been even bigger had Halloween not fallen on a Saturday. Apart from exceptional cases such as horror sequels, movies usually take significantly more on Saturday than on Friday, and then edge down on Sunday. But in line with the rest of the market, This Is It dipped 23% from Friday to Saturday, before recovering on Sunday.
Halloween has not fallen on a Saturday since 1998. Its growing stature as a social event over the past decade is evidenced by the fact that, 11 years ago, UK box office grew 26% from Friday to Halloween Saturday. This time it fell 24%. Kids trick and treating, young adults out partying – Halloween revellers now clearly prefer other avenues of fun to a trip to the multiplex. Unless, of course, they were all watching X Factor.
The depressed market on Saturday was bad news for films holding special Halloween screenings, including My Bloody Valentine 3D and Twilight. It also dented the Halloween previews of Jennifer's Body, the dark comedy from Juno writer Diablo Cody.
Half-term triumph
Saturday may have disappointed, but overall the half-term holiday, which ended at the weekend, has been a cash bonanza, especially for animations Up and Fantastic Mr Fox. Pixar's Up added £9.5m over the past seven days for cumulative takings of £29.16m. That puts it past the lifetime totals of Ratatouille, WALL-E, Toy Story and Cars, and within sniffing distance of A Bug's Life (£29.5m). Although Up will now dip significantly as children go back to school, it will have no problem surpassing The Incredibles' total haul of £32.3m. Challenging the other three Pixar titles – Toy Story 2 (£44.3m), Monsters Inc (£37.9m) and Finding Nemo (£37.4m) – will be another matter.
Up did well to decline just 10% from the previous weekend. Fantastic Fox did better than that: it went up 2%. After opening on a so-so £1.52m, Wes Anderson's stop-motion animation added £4.1m in the last week, for a 10-day total of £5.59m. Either word of mouth is exceptionally good on the title, or else families that prioritised seeing Up on the first weekend of half-term caught up with Mr Fox later on. Probably a bit of both.
The arthouse hit
The depressed arthouse market bounced back with the arrival of An Education, director Lone Scherfig and screenwriter Nick Hornby's adaptation of Lynn Barber's 1960s-set memoir. The coming-of-age tale didn't need big stars – lead actors are Carey Mulligan and Peter Sarsgaard – to pull in £399,000 from 93 screens. That figure is ahead of the debuts of Hurt Locker (£309,000) and Broken Embraces (£296,000), and not far behind the opening of the summer's arthouse heavy hitter, Coco Before Chanel (£423,000). Meanwhile Danny Dyer, whose recent films have been weak theatrically and stronger on DVD, surprised with a very decent £198,000 from 80 sites with Dead Man Running.
The future
Despite the boost of This Is It, overall the market was 36% down on the equivalent weekend from 2008, when Quantum of Solace opened with a spectacular £15.38m. Next weekend should close the gap with the arrival of Disney's A Christmas Carol, which receives its worldwide premiere today with much attendant hoopla in London. Robert Zemeckis's motion-capture animation, starring Jim Carrey, seems well poised to appeal to families right up to the Christmas holiday, although its upscale literary origins may slightly limit its penetration.
UK top 10, 30 October–1 November
1. Michael Jackson's This Is It, 498 sites, £4,877,255 (New)
2. Up, 540 sites, £3,443,130. Total: £29,156,179
3. Fantastic Mr Fox, 483 sites, £1,545,325. Total: £5,589,484
4. Saw VI, 381 sites, £940,505. Total: £3,777,930
5. Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant, 386 sites, £544,676. Total: £2,304,738
6. Couples Retreat, 359 sites, £500,258. Total: £4,876,825
7. 9, 300 sites, £468,455 (New)
8. An Education, 93 sites, £399,122 (New)
9. The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus, 256 sites, £323,294. Total: £2,891,670
10. Dead Man Running, 80 sites, £198,442 (New)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2009/nov/03/this-is-it
Although it didn't live up to some of the more extravagant hype about its box-office prospects, Michael Jackson's This Is It opened with £4.88m including Wednesday and Thursday previews. After five days, it's already the second-biggest documentary of all time in the UK, behind the lifetime total of Fahrenheit 9/11 (£6.54m), and pushing March of the Penguins (£3.31m) into third place. This Is It has snatched In Bed With Madonna's long-held crown as the UK's biggest ever concert movie – that 1991 doc grossed £1.25m here. All in all, an impressive result for a film pieced together out of rehearsal footage.
The Halloween factor
This Is It might have been even bigger had Halloween not fallen on a Saturday. Apart from exceptional cases such as horror sequels, movies usually take significantly more on Saturday than on Friday, and then edge down on Sunday. But in line with the rest of the market, This Is It dipped 23% from Friday to Saturday, before recovering on Sunday.
Halloween has not fallen on a Saturday since 1998. Its growing stature as a social event over the past decade is evidenced by the fact that, 11 years ago, UK box office grew 26% from Friday to Halloween Saturday. This time it fell 24%. Kids trick and treating, young adults out partying – Halloween revellers now clearly prefer other avenues of fun to a trip to the multiplex. Unless, of course, they were all watching X Factor.
The depressed market on Saturday was bad news for films holding special Halloween screenings, including My Bloody Valentine 3D and Twilight. It also dented the Halloween previews of Jennifer's Body, the dark comedy from Juno writer Diablo Cody.
Half-term triumph
Saturday may have disappointed, but overall the half-term holiday, which ended at the weekend, has been a cash bonanza, especially for animations Up and Fantastic Mr Fox. Pixar's Up added £9.5m over the past seven days for cumulative takings of £29.16m. That puts it past the lifetime totals of Ratatouille, WALL-E, Toy Story and Cars, and within sniffing distance of A Bug's Life (£29.5m). Although Up will now dip significantly as children go back to school, it will have no problem surpassing The Incredibles' total haul of £32.3m. Challenging the other three Pixar titles – Toy Story 2 (£44.3m), Monsters Inc (£37.9m) and Finding Nemo (£37.4m) – will be another matter.
Up did well to decline just 10% from the previous weekend. Fantastic Fox did better than that: it went up 2%. After opening on a so-so £1.52m, Wes Anderson's stop-motion animation added £4.1m in the last week, for a 10-day total of £5.59m. Either word of mouth is exceptionally good on the title, or else families that prioritised seeing Up on the first weekend of half-term caught up with Mr Fox later on. Probably a bit of both.
The arthouse hit
The depressed arthouse market bounced back with the arrival of An Education, director Lone Scherfig and screenwriter Nick Hornby's adaptation of Lynn Barber's 1960s-set memoir. The coming-of-age tale didn't need big stars – lead actors are Carey Mulligan and Peter Sarsgaard – to pull in £399,000 from 93 screens. That figure is ahead of the debuts of Hurt Locker (£309,000) and Broken Embraces (£296,000), and not far behind the opening of the summer's arthouse heavy hitter, Coco Before Chanel (£423,000). Meanwhile Danny Dyer, whose recent films have been weak theatrically and stronger on DVD, surprised with a very decent £198,000 from 80 sites with Dead Man Running.
The future
Despite the boost of This Is It, overall the market was 36% down on the equivalent weekend from 2008, when Quantum of Solace opened with a spectacular £15.38m. Next weekend should close the gap with the arrival of Disney's A Christmas Carol, which receives its worldwide premiere today with much attendant hoopla in London. Robert Zemeckis's motion-capture animation, starring Jim Carrey, seems well poised to appeal to families right up to the Christmas holiday, although its upscale literary origins may slightly limit its penetration.
UK top 10, 30 October–1 November
1. Michael Jackson's This Is It, 498 sites, £4,877,255 (New)
2. Up, 540 sites, £3,443,130. Total: £29,156,179
3. Fantastic Mr Fox, 483 sites, £1,545,325. Total: £5,589,484
4. Saw VI, 381 sites, £940,505. Total: £3,777,930
5. Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant, 386 sites, £544,676. Total: £2,304,738
6. Couples Retreat, 359 sites, £500,258. Total: £4,876,825
7. 9, 300 sites, £468,455 (New)
8. An Education, 93 sites, £399,122 (New)
9. The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus, 256 sites, £323,294. Total: £2,891,670
10. Dead Man Running, 80 sites, £198,442 (New)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2009/nov/03/this-is-it
