Marching Powder

Source: True Brit Entertainment

‘Marching Powder’

The UK-Ireland box office suffered a slow month in March, with takings dropping 35% compared to March 2024.

The £50.7m total in March brought year-to-date takings to £245.5m - on a par with 2024, having been 15% up at the end of Fabruary.

The drop is partly explained by the school Easter holidays, which are yet to occur in 2025 and fell during March 2024; but also by a weaker release slate, with Dune: Part Two contributing £22.2m in March 2024.

UK-Ireland March 2025 top 10
 RankTitle (origin)  DistributorRelease dateMarch total 2025 total
 1
 Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy (Fr-UK-US)  Universal  14/2/25  £7.5m  £45.8m
 2  Disney’s Snow White (US)  Disney  21/3/25  £7.3m  £7.3m
 3   Mickey 17 (S Kor-US)
 Warner Bros  7/3/25  £6.8m  £6.8m
 4   Black Bag (US)  Universal  14/3/25  £3.3m  £3.3m
 5   Marching Powder (UK)
 True Brit  7/3/25  £3m  £3m
 6   Captain America: Brave New World (US)
 Disney  14/2/25  £1.8m  £18m
 7   Ne Zha 2 (China)  Trinity/CineAsia  21/3/25  £1.4m  £1.4m
 8   L2: Empuraan (India)  RFT Film  28/3/25  £1.3m  £1.3m
 9   Dog Man (US)  Universal  7/2/25  £1.2m  £13.4m
 10   A Working Man (UK-US)  Warner Bros  28/3/25  £1m  £1m

Monthly figures from Mar 7-April 4, 2025, courtesy of ComScore

Nothing has come close to that amount in 2025, with February release Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy as the highest-grossing release with £7.4m - the second month it has topped the monthly chart. The Universal title is the highest-grossing film of 2025 with £45.8m – more than two-and-a-half times the total of the second-highest-grossing title, Disney’s Captain America: Brave New World with £18m.

This year’s Easter Holidays run from April 5-22 for most schools. Cinemas will look to regain the ground lost in March with titles including Warner Bros’ A Minecraft Movie (opening today), Universal event title Six The Musical (Sunday 6) and Park Circus re-releases including Babe (April 11) and Wallace And Gromit: Curse Of The Were-Rabbit (April 18).

Takings are still up 9% compared to the same period from 2023.

March titles

Disney took second spot for March 2025, with musical adaptation Snow White taking £7.3m after two weeks. It will soon overtake West Side Story (£7.8m) to become the second-highest-grossing title starring Rachel Zegler, behind The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes (£18.2m).

March releases also took places three-to-five in the chart: Bong Joon Ho’s sci-fi thriller Mickey 17 in third for Warner Bros, Steven Soderbergh’s Black Bag in fourth for Universal; and the highest-grossing independent title of the month, Nick Love’s UK drug comedy Marching Powder for True Brit Entertainment. With £3m, that film is now Danny Dyer’s second-highest-grossing of all time, behind only Mean Machine (£4.4m).

Major titles from international territories took two spots on the UK-Ireland list: Chinese blockbuster Ne Zha 2, released by Trinity Film/CineAsia to £1.4m in March; and Bollywood action film L2: Empuraan, which opened on March 28 and has £1.3m already.