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$0 Marvel Studios movie Black Widow stays at the top of the Uk box office this weekend making it three consecutive weeks for the movie.
Highest new entry of the weekend is the M. Night Shyamalan directed Old which makes its debut at number 4 while outside the top 5 at number 10 is new entry Off the Rails from director Jules Williamson which takes £80,598.
UK box office QuickView
UK box office tp 5 breakdown weekend 23rd - 25th July 2021
The Marvel Cinematic Universe origins movie remains at the top of the UK box office for a third straight weekend this week taking £1.4 Million, a slim 22% drop over last weekend.
This pushes the movies total gross over its three weekends to £13.8 Million, for obvious reasons its one of the lowest grossing movies from the Mavel/Disney collaboration but it is one of the top movies of 2021 in the UK at number 3 which is good and where you would expect it to be.
To remain at the top of the chart next weekend is a big ask with Disney releasing Jungle Cruise with Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt and Warner releasing The Suicide Squad from director James Gunn.
Destined to always be the runner up to Black Widow the toon and real life hybrid takes £1.3 Million over the weekend which is actually a 2% increase over last weekend, this can be contributed to the UK school summer holidays.
This gives the movie a 2 weekend total gross of £3.6 Million, comparing to the original Space Jam movie and taking the pandemic into consideration this is still low.
A dissipating debut last weekend was a bit misleading for the toon sequel as it moved up to number 4 this weekend with £876,123, a 20% increase over last weekend, again contribute this to the school summer holidays.
This gives the movie a 2 weekend gross of £2.05 Million.
Director M. Night Shyamalan brings us his latest mystery movie with a twist and unlike its debut at the top in America it has to contend with a new entry at number 4.
This is the highest new entry of the weekend, one which is really geared towards a teen to younger audience, but the movie takes £866,860 on its debut.
Falling to number 5 this weekend is the fifth movie in The Purge franchise which takes £598,803, a 17% drop, for a 2 weekend total of £1.8 Million.
During the Disney earnings call on August 4th it was announced that the live action version of Mulan, which has had many theatrical delays, will be released on the monthly subscription Disney+ for $29.99.
That is in America at least where the COVID-19 pandemic is still keeping cinemas from opening.
Disney also announced that other countries where Disney+ was available would get the movie, but some countries that don't will get a theatrical release.
The UK has Disney+ and movie theatres are starting to open, and by September 4th, the announced release date, even more will be open.
The movie is most likely to get a duel release in the UK, and other countries in Europe as well as Australia and New Zealand so people can choose how to watch it, a worrying move for the cinema industry.
Other films that have been delayed are The New Mutants and Black Widow which are still set to have theatrical released but could also get Disney+ 'rental' releases as well as hit cinemas.
Lets hope (for many reasons) things get back to normal soon, then we can start enjoying more movies as they should be seen, in a movie theatre!
A lot of new releases this week starring the likes of Jim Carrey, Elijah Wood, Zac Efron, James McAvoy and then there's The Last Exorcism sequel. The Incredible Burt Wonderstone is a wacky comedy also starring Steve Carell alongside Jim Carrey about 2 superstar magicians who are being out performed by street magicians so they go for sabotage of their act.
Maniac is a serial killer story about a Mannequin shop owner who develops a dangerous obsession with an artist.
The Paperboy has a seller cast of Zac Efron, Matthew McConaughey, Nicole Kidman and John Cusack, the story follows a reporter who returns to Florida to investigate a case which involves a prisoner on death row.
Welcome to the punch is a criminal cat and mouse story about an ex-con who returns to London for family reasons and is then pursued by an old foe looking to finally get revenge.
The Last Exorcism Part 2 is is a sequel film about an Exorcism, clearly the last one wasn't the last one!
A report is due to be released next week suggesting that the UK should make more commercially successful films, this is after a year where the British film industry contributed £4 Billion to the UK economy.
Prime Minister David Cameron is to visit Pinewood Studios on Wednesday (11th Jan) and has said himself that he British film industry should support "commercially successful pictures", but in doing this does it mean film makers loosing their artistic integrity?
In my mind this begs the question, do film makers make films for person reasons, it may be to make art, to make a statement or because the maker has a story they just have to tell, and despite it's commercial success if its going to be seen and enjoyed or acknowledged by the public, despite how small that group might be, it's worth making the film. Or is the making of a film an industry and if the product won't make a profit then why bother to produce it? In reality the films, which make the money, are (generally) big blockbuster.
Last year Britain produced The Kings Speech, The Inbetweeners, Johnny English Reborn and finish off the Harry Potter series (which can arguably be credited to Britain), all successful films which made money at the box office and have continued to make money in the home market (DVD, Blu-ray, downloads). But outside of this there were plenty of films that were lower grossing movies that probably didn't make money.
The "independent" films that Britain produces are often what separates it, and forms the identity of the film industry, India and France also have massive films industries and can be identified by these films which are loved by people in their native countries as well as other nationalities. In the UK we love American (Hollywood) blockbuster for what they are, and it just so happens they make money, maybe it's the marketing push of millions of dollars but they make money, much of which is pumped back into the American economy.
Of course this is the attraction, American mainstream films make money the world over, British films tend to make money only in the UK, the marketing pounds aren't there to promote the film to the same extent abroad. Despite The Kings Speech which won Oscars doing well in the US, The Inbetweeners and Johnny English didn't.
It must be argues that if Britain makes more 'mainstream' films there is a fear of the British film industry just becoming a Little Hollywood, and although it's no bad thing to produce movies that make money (and hence having a larger audience) we shouldn't and can't stop making films which can be truly identifies as British and which probably wont make millions.
There is a bit of controversy circulating around the internet that early adopters of blu-ray disks will lack features of future Blu-ray disks, and although this is true some claims are being made that the early players will not play future disks.
Although the former statement is true, feature on some future disks will not be accessible on certain players, the latter is simply not true.
Lets put this into context, Blu-ray players have a profile, 1.0, 1.1 and in the near future 2.0. Features are categorised in these profiles so for example picture in picture on future disks are part of profile 1.1. If you have an early player that is only capable of 1.0 you will be able to play a 1.1 disk and get the full experience but you wont be able to access the picture in picture feature.
What impact does this have on the current blu-ray player owners? It seems for a majority it will have little impact. One of the reasons why early players are not future proof is that they cannot connect to the internet and so cant be upgraded, this is where the most popular Blu-ray player sold to date has the advantage.
By quite a large margin the best selling player with the largest install base is the Playstation 3 and this is a wireless device which connects to the internet no problem and has already been upgraded to profile 1.1 and the upgrade to 2.0 is just around the corner.
Good news in all this is that one of the standards being introduced for profile 2.0 is the ability to connect to the internet which means that any future upgrades wont be a problem.
If you have been a little bit of an early adopter and you bought a player after November last year then you are probably already set and any player bought then or after that date had to be at least profile 1.1. If you bought one before then just remember you can still watch the film without any loss of picture.
Early adopter generally know that by being the first person on the street to have the latest technology they will probably have an out dated device quicker than the guy next door who waited 2 years before taking the plunge.