Universal’s franchise horror The Exorcist: Believer and Warner Bros’ UK drama The Great Escaper will be targeting different audiences at this weekend’s UK-Ireland box office, with both films opening wide.
Starting in 616 cinemas, The Great Escaper stars Michael Caine and Glenda Jackson, in her final film role before her death in June aged 87. Shot along the south coast of the UK including at Dover, Camber Sands and Hastings, the film follows a pensioner who escapes from his care home to attend the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings in France.
The Great Escaper is the 13th feature from UK director Oliver Parker, whose first film was 1996 Shakespeare adaptation Othello (total gross: £488,368). Since then he has predominantly worked in the comedy genre; his highest-grossing films are 2011’s Johnny English Reborn (£20.7m) followed by 2007’s St Trinian’s (£12.3m).
Backed by BBC Film, The Great Escaper is produced by Robert Bernstein and Douglas Rae for their UK firm Ecosse Films. The company has had success with prestige British stories, dating back to 1997’s Oscar-nominated Mrs. Brown (£4.1m) and including John Lennon early-life biopic Nowhere Boy (£1.4m) from 2009.
The Great Escaper brings down the curtain on the 70-year career of Jackson, who won Oscars for her performances in Women In Love and A Touch Of Class, as well as taking an acting hiatus from 1992 to 2015, when she was a Labour member of parliament.
Opening in 556 sites, The Exorcist: Believer will be aiming for a younger, genre-focused audience. The sixth film in The Exorcist franchise, it brings back Ellen Burstyn’s Chris MacNeil, the mother forever altered by her daughter’s possession 50 years previously, who is contacted by a father whose daughter has undergone a traumatic event.
The film is produced by Jason Blum’s Blumhouse Productions, the Universal subsidiary that has had success with low-budget, high-output horror titles, including franchise films. David Gordon Green directs Believer, having previously directed all three of the Halloween franchise reboot films for Blumhouse – 2018’s Halloween (£9m), 2021’s Halloween Kills (£5.1m) and 2022’s Halloween Ends (£4.8m).
Believer is the first Exorcist film since 2005’s Dominion: Prequel To The Exorcist, a straight-to-video title directed by Paul Schrader. That film came a year after Exorcist: The Beginning, which took £1.2m; while the highest-grossing film from the series remains a 1998 re-release of the original 1973 The Exorcist, with £7.4m.
BlackBerry switches on
National Amusements is starting Matt Johnson’s true-story comedy BlackBerry in 270 cinemas. The film, which debuted at Berlin Film Festival this year, tells the rapid rise and catastrophic demise of the BlackBerry smartphone in the 2000s. Jay Baruchel, Glenn Howerton and Johnson lead the cast.
Japanese anime Evangelion: 3.0+1.01 Thrice Upon A Time, the fourth and final film in the Rebuild of Evangelion series, starts on 133 screens this weekend through All The Anime.
MetFilm Distribution has two titles starting in cinemas this weekend. On 60 screens, Helen Mirren stars in Guy Nattiv’s Golda, a biopic of former Israeli prime minister Golda Meir, focusing on the decisions she made during the Yom Kippur war in 1973. Golda debuted out-of-competition at the 2023 Berlin Film Festival, before going on to play festivals in Luxembourg and Jerusalem among other places.
Also through MetFilm on 15 screens is Maggie Betts’ true story drama The Burial, about a lawyer helping a funeral home owner save his family business from a corporate behemoth. The film will launch on Amazon Prime Video next week.
Limited releases this weekend include Danny Garcia’s documentary Ghosts Of The Chelsea Hotel (and Other Rock & Roll Stories) in two cinemas through MusicFilmNetwork; Bulldog Film’s UK sex comedy Mind-Set in eight cinemas; Ukraine war documentary 20 Days In Mariupol in four sites through Dogwoof; and action thriller Dead Shot in one cinema through Miracle Comms.
Having topped the chart last time out, Lionsgate’s Saw X will provide competition for Believer; while further holdovers include Disney’s original sci-fi The Creator starring John David Washington.
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