In the summer months, Hollywood studios like to have at least one whole weekend to themselves when positioning their major blockbusters. This weekend just gone, Disney wasn't so lucky with the release of its second Chronicles of Narnia episode. When Universal first plonked Wanted onto the same date as Prince Caspian, Disney held its nerve, confident that the action picture based on a little-known graphic novel would prove little threat to its own franchise entry.
Or maybe the studio simply reasoned that the two films addressed such different audiences – Prince Caspian is PG, Wanted is 18 – they could peacefully co-exist.
In the event, Disney won the day, with Prince Caspian grossing £4.06 million, including previews on Thursday, as against £3.81 million over five days for Wanted, which opened a day earlier than its rival. Wanted performed strongly on Friday, but stumbled badly on Sunday, presumably because its target audience of young male adults was glued to the Euro 2008 soccer final. It's not a bad opening for Prince Caspian, but disappointing when compared to over £8 million for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe back in November 2005. Coincidentally, that film featured James McAvoy in a supporting role; this time, he was giving Narnia kickass opposition with his lead role in Wanted.
Other new releases were thin on the ground. Indian title Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic took £130,000 from 49 screens for a decent average of £2,659. That was nearly double the take of French World War II movie Female Agents, which picked up £68,000 from its 49 sites. The documentary A Complete History of My Sexual Failures – in which filmmaker Chris Waitt interrogates his ex-girlfriends to discover why he's such a romantic disaster zone – managed just over £12,000 from a dozen cinemas.
With May and June over, we are now halfway through the summer blockbuster season, and already a big discrepancy between results in the US and UK is evident. Across the ocean, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has yet to overtake Iron Man, with $300million, against the metal-accessorised superhero's $309million. In the last seven days, the gap has closed from 14 million to $9 million, so there is a chance Indie might overhaul Iron Man eventually.
But in the UK it's a totally different story. Iron Man has grossed £17 million, against Crystal Skull's £39 million – and in fact Iron Man is not even the second biggest picture of the summer. That honour goes to Sex and the City, which has done sensationally well in this territory, with over £24 million so far. In the US, Sex and the City has taken $140 million – less than half its big family-action rivals.
Overall this weekend, the top 15 films grossed £11.43 million, although this does not include £1.67 million in previews for Kung Fu Panda, which will instead be added to the coming weekend's total. The figure does however include the Wednesday/Thursday previews for Wanted and Prince Caspian, and represents a 38% increase from the previous weekend, when the biggest new release was British urban youth drama Adulthood. But compared to the same weekend from 2007 – when Shrek the Third opened with a whopping £16.67 million – takings are a grim-seeming 47% down. However, Shrek's grosses were inflated by previews of over £6 million, so the comparison between this year and last isn't as unflattering as it looks.
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