All articles by Robert Mitchell – Page 17
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French Toast: Gallic hits show international strength
Cedric Klapisch's comedy L'Auberge Espagnole managed a rare feat this week when it knocked Hollywood blockbuster X2: X-Men United off the top of a chart after just one week - in Poland.An opening of $79,872 (ZLO 299,026) for local distributor Spinka from 20,096 admissions gave L'Auberge Espagnole the lead position. ...
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Back to school: new releases can't touch X2
Despite four new entries hitting the UK top ten this week none were able to come close to 20th Century Fox's X-Men sequel, X2. With a vast lead the comic-book title took $4.9m (£3.1m) in its second weekend, a 48% drop from its opening.X2 has already grossed $21.7m (£13.5m) in ...
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UK gives X2 its biggest international opening
As X-Men fever swept the globe over the weekend, the UK was no exception to 20th Century Fox's mammoth success. Indeed X2: X-Men United's $11.3m (£7m) four-day opening from 449 UK sites gave the distributor its highest international opening for the film.The comic-book adventure easily took the top spot over ...
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Clooney's Confessions welcomed in Italy
After a series of generally low-key limited releases George Clooney's directorial debut, Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind, received a boost to its international box office last weekend with a number one bow in Italy.The territory is the first to provide the comic-drama, which is based on the 'unofficial autobiography' of ...
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3D Ghosts to get special screening
Ghosts Of The Abyss, James Cameron's 3D documentary in which he returns to the wreck of the Titanic, is to screen in Official Selection, out of competition at this year's Cannes Film Festival.The screening will take place on Saturday May 17, three days into the festival, at the Grand Amphitheatre ...
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Cameron's 3D Ghosts to obtain special screening
Ghosts Of The Abyss, James Cameron's 3D documentary in which he returns to the wreck of the Titanic, is to screen in Official Selection, out of competition at this year's Cannes Film Festival.The screening will take place on Saturday May 17, three days into the festival, at the Grand Amphitheatre ...
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UK BOX OFFICE
Three major new openers in the UK were no challenge for homegrown hit Johnny English last weekend (April 25-27), which saw the comedy drop off a mere 10% to lead for a third consecutive week. The UIP distributed film claimed another $3.6m (£2.3m) over the three-day weekend and has already ...
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New releases give UK box office a welcome boost
Working Title/UIP hit Johnny English held strong, dropping off just 26% in its second weekend, to retain the top spot against powerful competition from 20th Century Fox's Phone Booth and UIP's own How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days.The combined power of the holiday weekend releases (three made the ...
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UK box office lagging despite English boost
The combination of Working Title hit Johnny English and Disney animated sequel The Jungle Book 2 may have helped the UK box office to a 50% week-on-week rise last weekend, but figures were still down for the comparative weekend in 2002.The two new releases took top and second positions with ...
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Johnny English laughs its way to $20m opening weekend
A wideday-and-date international launch for UIP/Working Title's JohnnyEnglish has paid off with a massive $19.98m recorded over the weekend (April 11-13)from the 22 territories that received the spy spoof. Deliberately placed a week prior toEaster, the Peter Howitt-directed film firmly addressedfamily audiences and took the number one spot in ...
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Local films help buck doward admissions trend
With cinema attendance down in the three leading European territories for the first quarter of 2003 (Screendaily.com April 7) and figures showing that Belgium and Switzerland have followed suit, some of the smaller European territories are defiantly bucking the trend.Where local product like Chouchou and Good Bye, Lenin! has been ...
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Nowhere In Africa scores somewhere in the UK
Buena Vista International's The Recruit held strong at the top of the UK chart for a second week, seeing off three new challengers over the weekend. However, in another slow weekend for films on wide release, two foreign-language limited releases showed that audiences are still willing to turn out despite ...
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Jungle Book sequel gets German boost
Buena Vista International's belated sequel to 1967's animated classic The Jungle Book scored a strong launch in Germany last weekend to take that country's top chart position.With 472,521 tickets sold the four-day (March 27-30) opening weekend take of $2.6m (Euros 2.4m) from 668 screens The Jungle Book 2 scored a ...
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BVI recruits four top slots for CIA thriller
Buena Vista International scored a strong weekend for its CIA thriller The Recruit over the weekend with number one openings recorded in four European territories. The UK, Italy, Belgium and The Netherlands all awarded the film, which stars Al Pacino and Colin Farrell, with a lead position.The UK and Ireland ...
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CIA thriller recruits UK core audience
Buena Vista International's CIA thriller The Recruit expanded from one to 381 sites in its second weekend on release in the UK and swept straight to the top of the chart with $1.4m (£920,472).The wide opening of The Recruit kept other new hopefuls, including day-and-date launch The Core, off the ...
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Lord Of The Rings beats Lord Of The Rings
In the same week that Universal announced Peter Jackson would be directing a King Kong re-imagining for release in 2005, the second of the New Zealand director's epic The Lord Of The Rings trilogy surpassed the international cumulative gross of its predecessor.The Two Towers became the fifth highest grossing film ...
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Escapist viewing benefits from war fatigue
While there appeared to be some evidence in the US that the war on Iraq affected box office figures last weekend, the effect in Europe seems more on viewing choices rather than numbers.Indeed, athough many territories saw a drop in returns this weekend from last weekend, others including Denmark, Finland, ...
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Just Married celebrates at the top over a slow weekend
A lacklustre weekend at the UK box office saw new release Just Married take over the top spot from two week leader and fellow romantic comedy Maid In Manhattan.The top 15 titles in the UK and Ireland tallied just $7.8m (£5m) between them, a 16% drop on last weekend, which ...
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Triple whammy as Gangs, Ring and 8 Mile pass the $100m mark
Three films crossed the much sought after $100m international box office mark this week, led by Oscar contender Gangs Of New York.Martin Scorsese's historical epic tipped over the mark to record a total international cumulative gross of $103.5m. Continued strong runs in Spain and Germany scored the bulk of the ...
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Maid cleans up again, Gale blows into second place
Columbia TriStar's hit romantic comedy Maid In Manhattan held strong in the UK this weekend to take the top spot for the second week running. The film kept a host of new releases at bay, including UIP's death row drama The Life Of David Gale which claimed second place.Maid In ...