‘The Suicide Squad’ soars to top of UK-Ireland box office with ‘Jungle Cruise’ second

GBP to USD conversion rate: 1.39

James Gunn’s supervillain blockbuster The Suicide Squad opened top of the UK-Ireland box office this weekend, with a £3.25m start.

Playing in 643 locations, the film recorded a £5,051 location average for Warner Bros.

The £3.25m total is down on the £4.8m opening of Fast And Furious 9 in June and £4.6m of Black Widow last month; however it still represents a strong result in a competitive box office for The Suicide Squad, with social distancing rules still in place at many venues.

Disney’s Jungle Cruise opened in second place with £2.24m from 580 locations, at an average of £3,860.

Warner Bros’ Space Jam: A New Legacy was one of the strongest performers this weekend, falling a small 8% on its previous session. It took £1.3m over the three days, and has £6.6m from two sessions.

Having held the number one spot for three weeks, Black Widow moved to fourth spot, dropping 44% with £786,548. It now has £16.06m after four sessions, moving ahead of the total gross of fellow Marvel Cinematic Universe title Thor (£14m). It is currently 21^st in the list of MCU titles by gross, out of 24 films.

The Croods 2: A New Age scored an excellent result, increasing its takings for the second successive weekend. It went up 1.9% on the last session, with £892,559 bringing it to £4.2m from three sessions.

Distributor Universal also opened DreamWorks Animation adventure Spirit Untamed to £591,220 from 517 locations at an average of £1,144. It pipped fellow Universal title Old into sixth place; M. Night Shyamalan’s beach horror dropped 40.9% on its second session, with £512,071 taking it to £2.1m. The film will fall below the heights of 2017’s Split (£11.4m) and 2019’s Glass (£11m).

Universal dominated the top 10, with The Forever Purge dropping 43.3% with £339,331 taking it to £2.7m after three weekends; and Fast And Furious 9 dropping 46.7% with £232,753 taking it to £15.6m from six. It will end as the sixth highest-grossing of the 10 Fast & Furious titles to date, behind 2011’s Fast & Furious 5 with £18.5m.

Finally for Universal, Edgar Wright’s music documentary The Sparks Brothers took £31,337 on its opening weekend from 83 locations at a £378 average. The film played a special screening on Thursday, July 29, including as the opening night film of Sundance London, and has £123,004 including those previews.

For Sony, Peter Rabbit 2 fell just 13% with £135,000 taking it to £19.3m; while Escape Room: Tournament Of Champions dropped 56.8% with £72,000 taking it to £931,000 from three sessions, down on the £2.6m of the 2019 first film.

Limbo raises the bar

Mubi scored a good result for Ben Sharrock’s Bafta-nominated and Bifa-winning Limbo, which opened to £40,913 across the weekend and has £65,925 including previews and festival screenings.

A Quiet Place Part II fell 53% for Paramount, with £40,000 taking it to £11.55m from a lengthy nine weekends.

Summer Of Soul (…Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised) fell just 15% on its third weekend, with £39,238 taking it to £259,321.

Further down Warner Bros’ slate, musical In The Heights dropped 56% with £29,000 taking it to £4.4m; while The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It added £21,000 and has £9.4m total.

Munro Films’ Off The Rails added £28,869 on its second weekend and stands at £247,454.

For Studiocanal, Another Round dropped 36% with £27,665 taking it to £718,738.

The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard is closing out for Lionsgate, adding £16,285 this session to bring it to £3.8m – just over half of the £7.3m of the 2017 first film.

Dogwoof opened documentary The Most Beautiful Boy In The World, about the effects of his starring role in Lucino Visconti’s Death In Venice upon actor Bjorn Andresen, to £5,384 from 21 locations, at an average of £256.

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