UK Weekend Box-Office (Dec 16th– Dec 18th)

‘Rogue One: A Star Wars‘ story nets the biggest opening weekend of 2016 (kinda) and left enough room in theatres for festive event-screenings ‘It’s A Wonderful Life‘ and ‘The Nutcracker: Bolshoi Ballet‘. All this and more happened last weekend at the U.K. Box-Office.

#1
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (12A)
Weekend Gross: £17,261,889
No. of Movie Theatres: 698
Per-Theatre Average: £24,730
Week of Release: 1st
Total U.K. Gross: £17,261,889

Trilbee’s Review

#2
Moana (PG)
Weekend Gross: £1,423,948
No. of Movie Theatres: 580
Per-Theatre Average: £2,455
Week of Release: 3rd
Total U.K. Gross: £6,907,738

Trilbee’s Review

#3
Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them (12A)
Weekend Gross: £1,416,433
No. of Movie Theatres: 580
Per-Theatre Average: £2,442
Week of Release: 5th
Total U.K. Gross: £44,963,803

Trilbee’s Review

#4
Sully: Miracle on the Hudson (12A)
Weekend Gross: £615,228
No. of Movie Theatres: 509
Per-Theatre Average: £1,208
Week of Release: 3rd
Total U.K. Gross: £5,703,984

#5
Office Christmas Party (15)
Weekend Gross: £546,678
No. of Movie Theatres: 453
Per-Theatre Average: £1,207
Week of Release: 2nd
Total U.K. Gross: £2,351,824

#6
Trolls (U)
Weekend Gross: £163,959
No. of Movie Theatres: 378
Per-Theatre Average: £434
Week of Release: 9th
Total U.K. Gross: £22,899,913

Trilbee’s Review

#7
The Nutcracker – Bolshoi Ballet
Weekend Gross: £135,026
No. of Movie Theatres: 123
Per-Theatre Average: £1,097
Week of Release: 1st
Total U.K. Gross: £135,026

#8
Arrival (12A)
Weekend Gross: £130,301
No. of Movie Theatres: 156
Per-Theatre Average: £835
Week of Release: 6th
Total U.K. Gross: £8,833,722

#9
Allied (15)
Weekend Gross: £121,140
No. of Movie Theatres: 190
Per-Theatre Average: £637
Week of Release: 4th
Total U.K. Gross: £4,015,941

#10
It’s A Wonderful Life (U)
Weekend Gross: £86,102
No. of Movie Theatres: 72
Per-Theatre Average: £1,195
Week of Release: 2nd
Total U.K. Gross: £2,385,094

With a four-day opening weekend, ‘Rogue One: A Star Wars Story‘ managed a spectacular £ 17.26M which, at first glance, would seem to be the biggest opening of the year. However, when you take into account the normal three-day figure from Friday, Saturday and Sunday its £13.22M opening lags slightly behind the £15.33M earned by ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them‘. Still, it’s a huge figure that only disappoints in comparison to some of the biggest openings in recent memory, such as last year’s ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens‘ which earned £34.01M (£9.68M of that was previews). Still, ‘Rogue One: A Star Wars Story‘ has great word-of-mouth and little direct competition over the next few weeks meaning that it could still go on to be 2016’s biggest hits.

Due to its huge roll-out (698 screens) films in the Top 5 such as ‘Moana‘, ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them‘, ‘Sully: Miracle on the Hudson‘ and ‘Office Christmas Party‘ managed to hold decently earning over £500K. It was the movies lower in the chart that suffered as No. 6 ‘Trolls‘ eared nearly £400K less than the No. 5 ‘Office Christmas Party‘. Still, the low performances of movies like ‘Arrival‘ (£130K), ‘Allied‘ (£121K) ‘Bad Santa 2‘ (£71K) and ‘A United Kingdom‘ (£51K) allowed Christmas-themed event cinema to make the Top 10.

Coming in at No. 7 was the Bolshoi Ballet’s production of ‘The Nutcracker‘ with £135K and at No. 10 we find the annual re-release of ‘It’s A Wonderful Life‘. Since its 2007 re-issue the film has earned a total of £2.38M; an average of 266K a year. It’s become a yearly tradition for many people and the fact that it cracked the Top 10 shows that demand is still relatively high.

Thanks to ‘Rogue One: A Star Wars Story‘ takings are up 143% from last weekend but down 43% from the same weekend last year when ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens‘ achieved the biggest opening weekend in U.K. history. Due to Christmas falling during a weekend, it means that there’s odd releases scattered throughout the next few weeks including ‘Why Him?‘, ‘Collateral Beauty‘, ‘Monster Trucks‘ and ‘Assassin’s Creed‘. But expect ‘Rogue One: A Star Wars Story‘ to dominate over the coming weeks.

If you enjoyed this article, then please consider donating to my Patreon campaign which gets you e-mail updates and exclusive rewards & perks – https://www.patreon.com/trilbee

You can also follow me on Twitter – @TrilbeeReviews