Universal comedy sequel Book Club: The Next Chapter leads the openers at this weekend’s UK-Ireland box office, starting its story in 612 cinemas.
Directed by Bill Holderman and written by Holderman and Erin Simms, the film follows four best friends who take their book club to Italy for the girls trip they never had.
It is a sequel to 2018’s Book Club, also directed by Holderman, which Paramount released and which opened to £721,512 in 519 cinemas at a £1,390 average. The film finished on a £4.2m cume; The Next Chapter will be looking for similar figures as this weekend’s leading title.
Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen play the four friends. Fonda recently appeared in Paramount’s friendship comedy 80 For Brady, a genre comparison title, which opened to £134,000 last month in the UK and Ireland.
Keaton appeared in retirement comedy Poms, also a genre comparison, which was released digitally in the UK and Ireland during the pandemic.
Eurovision comes to the UK this weekend, with CinemaLive playing Eurovision – Grand Final Live in 449 cinemas on Saturday, live-streamed from Liverpool. Both chains and independent venues are hosting special Eurovision events for the four-hour show, which will be hosted by Graham Norton, Ted Lasso star Hannah Waddingham, Alesha Dixon and Ukrainian singer Julia Sanina.
Multiple venues are hosting fancy dress parties for the screening. Vue Cinemas is enacting a poll across its venues playing the show for the favourite act, and relaxing its rules around audience behaviour during the screening to allow viewers to dance and party. Newcastle-upon-Tyne’s Tyneside Cinema will provide attendees with scorecards to judge the acts, and run a Eurovision bingo as well as its fancy dress party.
Sony romantic comedy Love Again heads into its first weekend in 524 cinemas, having opened on Wednesday, May 10. Directed by Jim Strause, the film is an English-language remake of 2016 German title SMS fur Dich (English translation: Message For You), itself based on a novel by Sofie Cramer.
Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Sam Heughan star as two people connected when one unintentionally sends a sequence of romantic messages to her deceased fiancé’s phone number, which has been reassigned. Singer Celine Dion also appears in the film as a fictionalized version of herself.
After numerous credits as a music performer – most famously with ‘My Heart Will Go On’ from Titanic, which won the Oscar and Golden Globe for best original song – Love Again is Dion’s first on-screen credited role.
Climbing Mountains
Picturehouse Entertainment is starting Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch’s drama The Eight Mountains in 50 cinemas. Adapted by the pair from Paolo Cognetti’s novel of the same name, the film depicts a friendship between two men who spent their childhood together in a remote Alpine village, and reconnect later as adults.
It shared last year’s Cannes Competition jury prize with EO; and went on to play festivals in Munich, Melbourne, Zurich, Busan and Tallinn, plus Sundance in the US. The film also picked up 14 nominations at Italy’s 2023 David di Donatello awards, winning four – best film, best adapted screenplay, best cinematography and best sound.
It is a seventh feature for Belgian director van Groeningen, whose 2012 The Broken Circle Breakdown was nominated for the best foreign language film Oscar; it is the first time he has shared directorial duties with Vandermeersch, his partner.
BFI Distribution is opening Nina Menkes’ documentary Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power in 27 sites. The film, which launched in the Premieres section at the online 2022 Sundance Film Festival, investigates the politics of cinematic shot design, and how this level of filmmaking intersects with sexual abuse and employment discrimination against women.
Curzon has Chie Hayakawa’s sci-fi Plan 75 in 26 cinemas, following its debut in Un Certain Regard at Cannes last May. It depicts a government programme that encourages senior citizens to be euthanised to remedy an aged society. It is a debut feature for Japanese filmmaker Hayakawa, who received a special mention from the Camera d’Or jury for debut filmmakers at Cannes.
Another Cannes 2022 title, Ali Cherri’s Directors’ Fortnight entry The Dam, is opening in four sites through ICA Cinema; while Trinity Film is starting Anastasia Tsang’s Hong Kong drama A Light Never Goes Out.
National Amusements is playing kids animation Thomas & Friends: Blue Mountain Mystery in 17 cinemas; while in event cinema, Trafalgar Releasing will play Machine Gun Kelly: Mainstream Sellout Live From Cleveland in 167 sites on Saturday, May 13.
Disney’s Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 will expect to top the charts for a second weekend, having recorded the biggest opening session of the year last time out. The Super Mario Bros. Movie will race past the £50m mark for Universal; while Evil Dead Rise is still taking a good cut, with almost £5m in the bank.
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