And kiddie flicks do very well indeed:
1. Avatar: £2.8 million
2. The Princess and the Frog: £1.7 million (3rd week in wide release; up 15%)
3. The Lovely Bones: £1.637 million (NEW)
4. Valentine’s Day: £1.583 million (2nd week; drops 58%)
5. Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief: £1.487 million (2nd week; drops 1%)
(actual numbers, not estimates)
Apparently it was the end of half-term school holidays last weekend, which accounts for the huge numbers for anything the kids might want to see: The Princess and the Frog was up 15 percent, Percy Jackson was just about steady from its opening weekend, and outside the top 5, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, at No. 8, was up 43 percent over its ninth weekend; Astro Boy, at No. 10, was up 24 percent over its third weekend; and Planet 51, at No. 21, was up 60 percent over its 12th weekend.
Grownup movies didn’t do so well. Following its lackluster performance in the U.S. and Canada, The Lovely Bones had only a so-so debut. And The Wolfman dropped 67 pecent in its second week in the U.K., which is just about as awful as the drop it took in North America. I wonder if Universal is reconsidering its decision to reboot the Universal monsters of old…
Overall business was flat against the same weekend last year, but with a bunch of new movies opening this coming weekend — including The Crazies and From Paris with Love — things could be up again next week.
[numbers via UK Film Council]
