The winner
The heatwave may now finally be passing but not in time for UK cinemas, which suffered a fourth successive weekend of sales depleted by fine weather. In this context, a slim 19% drop for Monsters University represents a highly respectable result, especially after its relatively soft £3.46m opening the previous weekend. With £8.63m after 10 days, the Disney/Pixar prequel has every chance of riding out the summer holiday to a decent total.
In the US, the film was released three weeks earlier than in the UK and has now reached a lofty $249m (£162m) – very close to the $256m achieved by the original Monsters, Inc in 2001 (or $290m including the 2012 3D rerelease). In the UK, Monsters, Inc reached a stunning £37.9m (plus £2.5m for the 3D rerelease), which currently looks a very distant prospect indeed for University to match.
Despicable Me 2 fell a similarly gentle 17%, becoming the third 2013 release to cross £30m, joining Les Misérablesand Iron Man 3. At this stage last year, only The Avengers had passed that threshold, although The Dark Knight Rises would do so by the end of July. Both those movies ended up at £50m-plus, which none of the titles so far released in 2013 have a chance of matching.
The disappointment
Missing out on the top spot, The World's End – the long-awaited reunion of Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Edgar Wright – lands with an underwhelming £2.12m. Even making allowances for the hot weather, Universal will be disappointed by the number, having plumped for it on one of the year's most coveted release dates. Last year, by way of example, The Dark Knight Rises occupied this position, and in 2010 it was Toy Story 3.
Shaun of the Dead opened in April 2004 with £1.60m – despite its beloved reputation, the film wasn't such a big winner at the box office, going on to make a splash on DVD instead. But Hot Fuzz was huge, debuting in February 2007 with £5.92m including £1.56m in previews, on its way to a £21.1m total. Even Frost and Pegg's Paul, which was not directed by Wright, kicked off in February 2011 with £5.52m including £2.31m in previews.
Universal and the film-making team will now be wondering whether this is all about the weather, or if, six years after Hot Fuzz, box-office numbers could really be expected to hold up. Comedy is a fast-moving genre, and in the intervening years we have seen the Judd Apatow phenomenon, the Hangover trilogy, and in the UK TV-to-movie event The Inbetweeners. Or perhaps the premise – five middle-aged blokes on a pub crawl – appealed principally to the original fans and didn't offer enough to broader and younger audiences.
The arthouse sector
If multiplexes are suffering in the heat, then that applies doubly to arthouses. Venues carrying the live transmission of Kenneth Branagh in the Manchester international festival production of Macbeth on Saturday night reportedly enjoyed packed houses (the box-office figures are not officially announced), but otherwise it was lean pickings. The top specialised film on release is The Bling Ring, with a measly £39,000 on its third weekend of play. Everything else – including much acclaimed new entrant Wadjda and admired films such as Breathe In and Easy Money – took less. The distributor of the last title played the Nordic noir card, but despite encouraging reviews the picture struggled at an ambitiously wide 79 cinemas, yielding a weak £21,000. Frances Ha, which arrives on Friday, really can't come soon enough for arthouse cinemas starved of commercially appealing titles.
The steady performer
World War Z faced a marketing challenge thanks to huge awareness of its troubled production – a story that backers Paramount really had no hope of burying. But a reasonable decay rate has seen the zombie action drama reach a highly respectable £13.8m here, ahead of Mr and Mrs Smith, Ocean's Thirteen, Ocean's Twelve and Snatch in the all-time Brad Pitt UK box-office rankings, and behind only Ocean's Eleven (£26.5m),Seven (£19.7m) and Troy (£18.0m). With $456m (£297m) globally so far for World War Z, it's not inconceivable that a sequel may yet result, especially if the production budget can be reined in below the $170m reported for the original.
The future
For the second weekend in a row, box-office takings are massively down – 47% on this occasion – on the equivalent frame from 2012. A year ago, cinemas greeted The Dark Knight Rises, of course, which The World's End didn't come close to matching. The surprise is perhaps how little went up against the Pegg-Frost-Wright comedy: rival studios seemingly afforded it more respect than it actually merited. Now cinemas are pinning their hopes onThe Wolverine, which will be hoping to shake off the stigma of underachieving predecessor X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The planets look nicely aligned for arthouse player Frances Ha, which arrives amid a crescendo of goodwill for the film, writer-star Greta Gerwig and writer-director Noah Baumbach. If this one goes down in flames, the specialised bookers might as well pack up and go home.
Top 10 films
1. Monsters University, £2,791,078 from 532 sites. Total: £8,633,957
2. The World's End, £2,123,576 from 530 sites (New)
3. Despicable Me 2, £1,850,549 from 544 sites. Total: £30,279,559
4. Pacific Rim, £1,332,877 from 487 sites. Total: £5,163,564
5. Now You See Me, £922,669 from 430 sites. Total: £7,248,705
6. World War Z, £242,057 from 271 sites. Total: £13,845,532
7. The Internship, £226,680 from 239 sites. Total: £2,858,468
8. Man of Steel, £134,325 from 189 sites. Total: £29,558,035
9. The Frozen Ground, £89,515 from 126 sites (New)
10. This Is the End, £74,270 from 132 sites. Total: £3,951,760
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