‘Sing 2’ ends ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ reign at UK-Ireland box office

After six weeks, Spider-Man: No Way Home’s reign at the top of the UK-Ireland box office is over thanks to a strong debut from Sing 2. 

The Universal animation sequel, once again written and directed by Garth Jennings, opened well ahead of the competition with £6.8m from 631 sites for a location average of £10,776.

That’s up on the 2017 original’s £6.25m debut, athough that opened on 555 sites. It’s the biggest animated opening of the pandemic, and the third biggest overall behind No Time To Die and Spider-Man: No Way Home.

The voice cast includes Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, Scarlett Johansson, Taron Egerton, Bobby Cannavale, Pharrell Williams and Letitia Wright, plus U2 singer Bono.

In more good news for Universal, Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast posted a strong £1.89m on its second weekend, dropping just 18% and bringing it to £6m in total.

That was enough to push Sony’s Spider-Man: No Way Home into third spot. The record-breaking superhero sequel was just behind Belfast with £1.8m, a fall of 24%, for a £89.9m total. This saw it move past Avengers: Endgame to become the sixth-highest grossing film of all time in the territory.

In fourth spot, Paramount’s Scream fell 38% on its previous session, with £788,000 bringing it to £6.15m from three weekends.

Disney’s Nightmare Alley snuck into the weekend top five with £332,876, a 40% drop on its opening weekend, bringing it to £1.2m.

Arthouse openers

Event cinema release Leopoldstadt, a National Theatre live performance of the 2020 Tom Stoppard play, grossed £471,864 on Thursday, with 533 out of 624 sites reporting, and a further £37,173 in encores for a £509,037 total.

Pathe UK released Pedro Almodóvar’s Parallel Mothers (Warner Bros handled theatrical distribution) in 186 locations, with the Venice prize winner opening with £247,075, plus £54,802 from previews for a £301,877 total

Magnetes Pictures’ Polish-language biopic Gierek, about 20^th century Polish Communist politician Edward Gierek, opened with £81,348 from 157 locations.

Yasuhiro Yoshiura’s anime title Sing a Bit of Harmony opened with £21,000 from 110 sites through Sony.

Republic Film Distribution opened Romola Garai’s directorial debut Amulet to £12,120 from 37 screens, with limited shows in most locations.

BFI Distribution’s reissue of Frank Hurley’s South – considered to be the first-ever documentary feature - opened with a £3,729 weekend total, plus £5,816 in previews.

Key holdovers

For Disney, The King’s Man fell 27% on its fifth week, adding £286,330 for a £7.6m total; West Side Story took £119,941 on its eighth weekend, a fall of 40%, bringing it to £7.3m; and Encanto added £98,269, taking it to £7.1m after ten weeks.

Warner Bros’ The Matrix: Resurrections fell 52% on its sixth weekend with £75,783 taking it to £7.4m.

Universal’s Licorice Pizza added another £87,108, taking its total to £2.1m; whilst House Of Gucci took £60,772 and is now up to £9.7m from ten sessions.

Vertigo Releasing’s Boling Point took £32,026 from 69 sites, with a gross to date of £376,017.

• Global box office: Spider-Man: No Way Home hits $1bn outside North America; new markets boost Sing 2