‘Despicable Me 4’ regains UK-Ireland box office lead in eighth weekend boosted by National Cinema Day; ‘Andre Rieu’ opens in top five

Rank	Film (distributor)	Three-day gross (August 30-Sep 1)	Total gross to date	Week
1.	Despicable Me 4 (Universal)	£1.24m	£44.6m	8
2.	Deadpool & Wolverine (Disney)	£1.22m	£54.7m	6
3.	It Ends With Us (Sony)	£1.1m	£18.6m	4
4.	Alien: Romulus (Disney)	£1.08m	£10.8m	3
5.	Andre Rieu’s 2024 Maastricht Concert: Power Of Love (Piece Of Magic)	£700,000	£700,000	1

GBP to USD conversion rate: 1.31

Universal animation Despicable Me 4 rose back to the top of the UK-Ireland box office chart on its eighth weekend in cinemas, boosted by National Cinema Day on Saturday, August 31.

Despicable Me 4 fell a slim 12% across the weekend, with its Saturday takings up 23% compared to the previous Saturday. With £1.24m, it now has £44.6m in total. It is likely to overtake Minions: The Rise Of Gru (£47m), Despicable Me 2 (£47.5m), Minions (£47.8m) and Despicable Me 3 (£47.9m) before the end of its run, to become the highest-grossing title in the franchise.

It pipped another long-running title, Disney’s Deadpool & Wolverine, into second place by less than £25,000. Deadpool & Wolverine still put in an admirable performance for a Marvel title, falling 31% in its sixth weekend with £1.22m. It now has £54.7m, as the second-highest-grossing 2024 release; and is the fourth-highest-grossing of 34 Marvel Cinematic Universe titles, behind only Avengers: Infinity War (£70.8m), Avengers: Endgame (£88.7m) and Spider-Man: No Way Home (£96.4m).

Sony’s domestic abuse drama It Ends With Us added £1.1m on its fourth weekend in cinemas, moving to third place with a 38.2% drop. The film, starring Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni, now has an impressive £18.6m total.

Disney’s Alien: Romulus fell 47% on its third session, adding £1.08m. The creature horror has £10.8m in total, and could still catch the £12.9m of Alien: Covenant to become the highest-grossing film in the franchise.

Andre Rieu’s 2024 Maastricht Concert: Power Of Love, the latest event cinema release from the Dutch violinist and conductor, started reliably well with a £700,000 weekend, with encores to follow in the coming weeks for distributor Piece of Magic Entertainment.

Despite National Cinema Day, takings for the top five fell a steep 31% to £5.4m. That is the lowest level since the spring, and down 6.5% on the equivalent weekend from last year. Cinemas will look to Warner Bros’ Beetlejuice Beetlejuice to improve standings next weekend.

Inside Out still in

Disney’s Inside Out 2 was another individual beneficiary of National Cinema Day, rising 1% across the weekend with £614,467 on its 12^th weekend in cinemas. The Pixar animation now has £58.2m, the highest-grossing 2024 release.

Zoe Kravitz’s Blink Twice leads Warner Bros’ slate, adding £521,028 on its second weekend to hit £1.9m.

Twisters starring Daisy Edgar-Jones and Glen Powell added £293,702 – an impressive 4.6% increase – on its seventh weekend, to hit a powerful £14.1m total for Warner Bros. 

Trafalgar Releasing’s Coraline re-release continues to draw audiences, adding £267,647 on a third session to cross the £3m mark.

Chris Weitz’s sci-fi horror Afraid opened to £216,620 for Sony, at a £481 site average.

On its fifth weekend in cinemas, Sony’s Harold And The Purple Crayon increased its takings for the second successive session, going up 9.7% with £195,110 to bring its total to £2.9m. 

M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap added £148,226 on its fourth weekend, and has £3.6m in total for Warner Bros, overtaking his last two films Knock At The Cabin (£3.2m) and Old (£3.4m).

Curzon and Wildcard Distribution’s Irish Oscar entry Kneecap added £146,751 on its second weekend of a full UK-Ireland release – a 41.7% drop, which took it to a £1.4m cume. It continues to perform especially well in Ireland, where it took £68,852 at an average of £840, and remains in the top five four weekends into its Irish run.

Sony’s latest Spider-Man re-release The Amazing Spider-Man 2 took £129,875 this weekend in addition to £24.1m from its original 2014 release.

Entertainment Film Distibutors’ The Crow put on £128,476 on its second weekend, and has £818,589 in total.

The Terminator was back in cinemas this weekend through Park Circus, grossing a decent £97,696 including previews.

The Count of Monte Cristo opened to £95,716 for Entertainment Film Distributors.

Black Bear opened Sing Sing starring Colman Domingo to £66,994.

Signature Entertainment’s animation Ozi: Voice Of The Forest added £48,985 on its third session, and has £466,602.

Ozi Perkins’ horror Longlegs added a further £36,198 for Black Bear, taking it past the £8m mark in an impressive run.

A second weekend of Paramount playing Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 Pulp Fiction brought in £29,000, and £231,000 in total, while Paramount’s The Italian Job re-release took £20,000

Baltasar Kormakur’s Touch opened to a flat £19,599 from 110 sites for Universal, at an average of just £151. Including previews, the film has £20,105.

Thriller Cuckoo starring Hunter Schafer fell 82% on its second weekend for Universal, with £12,614 taking it to a £182,363 total. 

Park Circus re-released two Batman films this weekend, as part of its ongoing re-issue series for the caped crusader. The LEGO Batman Movie took £11,407, while Batman: Mask Of The Phantasm made £11,378.

Sony comedy Between The Temples added £4,198 on its second session, and has £56,434 in total.

Ben Metcalf’s new UK-Ireland distribution company Metis Films opened Ali Kalthami’s crime title Mandoob to £3,774, and £10,991 including previews.

Vertigo Releasing opened Dominic Savage’s Close To You to £2,743, and £3,507 including previews.

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