‘Dune’ dethrones ‘No Time To Die’ to top UK-Ireland box office with £4.8m opening

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Warner Bros’ sci-fi epic Dune has knocked No Time To Die off top spot at the UK-Ireland box office with a £4.8m opening weekend.

The film took an average of £7,210 from 668 locations – a strong start, even if down on the location averages of No Time To Die (£27,231), and Venom: Let There Be Carnage last week (£10,244).

Dune has £5.9m including previews, having grossed £982,548 from previews last Thursday.

Its opening is slightly behind the £5.2m Friday-Sunday start of director Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049 in 2017, which went on to a £19.2m total. Warner Bros will now be looking for Dune to become Villeneuve’s first £20m+ gross in the UK and Ireland; and the studio’s first since Joker in autumn 2019, which totalled at a huge £58.3m.

Universal’s No Time To Die slipped back 44.8% on its fourth weekend in cinemas, with £4.6m taking it just shy of £78m total. It continues to track slightly behind Skyfall, which took £5.6m for an £82.7m cume after four weekends. It is ahead of Spectre’s £3.9m fourth weekend total; and although it is down on that film’s £84.6m from four sessions, Spectre had played for 28 days by this point, compared to No Time To Die’s 25 days.

These figures suggest that while the film is slowing down and facing competition from a packed box office, the £100m mark is still just about in play with a strong tail, which Bond films typically have.

Sony’s Venom: Let There Be Carnage took £2.5m on its second weekend, a drop of almost 60% on the strong opening session. The film now has £11.2m, and will still see the £20.2m of 2018’s Venom as a target for its final total.

Universal also opened The Boss Baby 2 to £1.2m from 609 locations, at an average of £1,944. This is down on the £2.8m Friday-Sunday opening of the first film, which ended on a sizeable £29.1m.

The Addams Family 2 fell 36% on its third weekend, with £877,428 taking it to £5.3m. It will need a significant tail now to catch the £9.9m total of the first film in the franchise reboot, from October 2019.

Dispatches

The French Dispatch replicated its strong start stateside for Disney, with £771,349 from 315 locations at an average of £2,449. Including previews, Wes Anderson’s latest has £867,672.

This is down on the £2.2m from 472 sites of Isle Of Dogs and £1.53m from 287 sites of The Grand Budapest Hotel, both including previews. The latter went on to be Anderson’s highest-grossing title in the territory with £11.5m. Such pre-pandemic figures will be beyond The French Dispatch; but it has already passed the £424,055 total of the director’s Rushmore, and is looking towards the totals of The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (£1.6m) and Moonrise Kingdom (£2.06m).

Despite the approaching titular festivities, Halloween Kills dropped 51.6%, also for Universal, with £768,759 taking it to £3.2m from two weekends. It is tracking behind the 2018 first title in the franchise reboot, which ended just short of £9m.

Disney’s Ron’s Gone Wrong was one of the best-performing holdovers of a busy weekend, falling just 35% with £562,540 taking it to £1.8m total.

Dear Evan Hansen was a flat opener for Universal, taking just £233,686 from 275 locations at an average of £850 per location.

Also for Disney, Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings dropped 68% with £60,764 taking it to £21.1m from eight weekends, closing in on the £21.18m of 2010’s Iron Man 2; while The Last Duel suffered a big 82% hit on just its second weekend, with £58,851 taking it to £658,169. 

The PAW Patrol Movie walks on for Paramount, adding £44,000 to stand just below £8.5m; while further screenings of the Scream 25^th anniversary re-release put its cume to £117,000, with many additional slots programmed for Halloween weekend.

An event release of Tom Petty, Somewhere You Feel Free: The Making Of Wildflowers took £29,802 from 122 locations last Wednesday, at an average of £244.

Arracht added £11,600 to take its total to £73,147 total for Breakout Pictures.

The Many Saints Of Newark is closing out with £6,482 taking it just past the £2m mark.

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