The Jungle Book ahead of the pack in UK while Mirren eyes a hit
Live-action/CGI remake of 1967 animation debuts with an impressive £9.9m; and Helen Mirren’s Eye in the Sky hits the spot between thriller and adult drama
EXCERPT
The crossover hit: Eye in the Sky
Helen Mirren on Eye in the Sky: ‘You can’t dismiss it as a macho movie about war’ - video interview
When Bleecker Street released Eye in the Sky in the US in March, it opted for a platform release, expanding in early April to a modestly wide 1,029 theatres, and achieving $13m so far. The film straddles the space between thriller and adult drama, as military personnel and politicians debate whether to order a drone strike on a terror target in Nairobi that will likely incur loss of civilian life. The morally serious screenplay is by Guy Hibbert (Paul Greengrass’s Omagh) and direction comes from Tsotsi’s Gavin Hood.
Here in the UK, distributor eOne has tried not to tip the positioning too far in one direction, offering a poster showcasing a critical summary: “A tense, morally complex, extremely prescient thriller.” The danger with this approach is that a film can fall through the gap between two audiences, but this has not happened on this occasion, given a robust £1.11m opening from 428 cinemas. Evidently the combination of the premise’s moral quandary and talent elements including Helen Mirren, Alan Rickman, Aaron Paul and Barkhad Abdi has struck a chord in the UK.
By rule of thumb, based on a final projected US box-office total of around $15m, you’d expect a UK gross of £1.5m for Eye in the Sky. Clearly, eOne is going to sail past that total here. It’s a much better outcome than has just been achieved by the same distributor with Jeff Nichols’s Midnight Special – a film walking a tricky line between US indie and genre hybrid, with kidnap, chase thriller and sci-fi elements. That one opened with £497,000 including £31,000 in previews, then dropped a troubling 67% in its second frame, for a 10-day total of £945,000.
Excerpt #2
Top 10 films, 15-17 April
1. The Jungle Book, £9,901,921 from 594 sites (new)
2. Zootropolis, £1,129,311 from 573 sites. Total: £20,701,132
3. Eye in the Sky, £1,110,959 from 428 sites (new)
4. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, £990,487 from 486 sites. Total: £35,349,754
5. Eddie the Eagle, £794,616 from 517 sites. Total: £7,277,594
6. The Huntsman: Winter’s War, £647,110 from 522 sites. Total: £4,406,063
7. Fan, £426,619 from 109 sites (new)
8. Theri, £281,485 from 46 sites (new)
9. Criminal, £248,376 from 277 sites (new)
10. Kung Fu Panda 3, £246,893 from 469 sites. Total: £13,317,340
All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt. (Charles M. Schulz)
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