Spider-Man: No Way Home is still keeping the competition at bay as it remains the highest-grossing film at the UK box office after six weeks, raking in £2.3 million last weekend.
This puts it ahead of No Time To Die‘s six-week run, which reached £2 million. Spider-Man’s total is now a huge £87.4 million, the seventh highest-grossing film of all time at the UK box office, just behind Avengers Endgame’s £88.7 million. Spider-Man also has another record in its sights; the most consecutive weekends spent at number one in the UK box office. It’s not too far behind the eight consecutive weekends of Avatar in 2009/2010.
Meanwhile, Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast, perhaps propelled by its recent Golden Globes win, soared in the box office this weekend. It valiantly challenged Spider-Man No Way Home, and even came out on top on Friday alone. But after the whole weekend was over it fell just short with £2.2 million, only slightly behind the webbed wall-crawler’s £2.3 million, securing second place and a confident start to its box office run.
Trailing behind Spider-Man and Belfast, Scream had a decent £1.25 million second weekend, bringing its UK total to £4.7 million. The latest entry in the Scream franchise’s honeymoon period isn’t too far behind Scream 4’s £2 million opening first weekend, an impressive debut for the horror reboot/sequel.
Elsewhere, Guillermo Del Toro’s noir Nightmare Alley opened this weekend to a disappointing £550,000 despite a warm reception from fans and critics. Starring Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, and Rooney Mara, the film’s muted opening follows the trend set by Last Night In Soho and West Side Story, both auteur films which failed to make a splash at the box office.
January is usually a dry month for cinemas after Christmas has drained everyone’s pockets, but this year the industry seems to be faring quite well. And with blockbusters like Sony’s Uncharted and family films like Sing 2 coming to cinemas in the coming weeks, hopefully the only way is up.
Words by Lewis Royle
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