1 hour ago, Tafty said:

Wicked and Avatar are not flops.

And yes. Always just Fri-Sun figures (and “previews” if they’re shown before…

Christ cinema is far from dying then!!! Those are insane figures acrpss the whole box pffice for just weekends!!!

They are flops compared to their budgets and what the people in charge wanted them to bring in!

1 hour ago, Tafty said:

You're mistaking an underperformance for flop...

(And even then they're not...)

Limping to 700 million when they expected double... Avatar's bidget and it struggling everywhere but China... Like these are flops.

13 hours ago, Auld Lang Peen! said:

Christ cinema is far from dying then!!! Those are insane figures acrpss the whole box pffice for just weekends!!!

They are flops compared to their budgets and what the people in charge wanted them to bring in!

Both have made more than 2.5x their budget which is apparently what is considered for a film to be seen as a success, yes they are way down on both of their predecessors but still successful in their own rights

4 hours ago, 777666jason said:

Both have made more than 2.5x their budget which is apparently what is considered for a film to be seen as a success, yes they are way down on both of their predecessors but still successful in their own rights

Add in bad reviews, weak takimgs, awful merchandising sales, ehere they'll havr lost a lot, and the massive promo budgets they have on top of the movies, peopoetionally HUUUUGE because they thought they'd be more successful, and you have flops. People won't stream them much either... Like these movies are disasters foe the studios

They're not flops though... they're still making (a LOT) of profit. It doesn't matter how much less than the previous movies in their franchise they've made. They've still hit a profitable mark for their companies.

I'm not even a fan of the movies we're talking about, they're both as mid as each other, but they are in fact big hits.

16th January 2026 - 18th January 2026

 

1. (NE) 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple - £3,376,385 Weeks: 1 (£3,376,385)

2. (01) The Housemaid - £2,827,934 (-20%) Weeks: 4 (£22,630,490

3. (02) Hamnet - £2,608,944 (-20%) Weeks: 2 (£8,396,010)

4. (03) Avatar: Fire And Ash - £1,702,005 (-35%) Weeks: 5 (£38,439,770)

5. (04) Marty Supreme - £1,478,246 (-28%) Weeks: 4 (£11,911,145)

6. (05) Zootropolis 2 - £981,352 (-20%) Weeks: 8 (£30,490,448)

7. (NE) Rental Family - £521,718 Weeks: 1 (£521,718)

8. (RE) The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring (25th Anniversary) - £473,378 Weeks: 1 (£473,378)

9. (06) The SpongeBob Movie: Search For SquarePants - £467,290 (-24%) Weeks: 4 (£7,440,535)

10. (07) Anaconda - £300,918 (-43%) Weeks: 4 (£5,226,009)

 

Falling out:

Song Song Blue (2 weeks)

Giant (1 week)

Labyrinth (40th Anniversary) (1 week)

We do have a new number one but its one with an asterisk next to its name as ’28 Years Later: The Bone Temple’ (£3,376,385, £2.4 million without previews) opens at #1 thanks to its previews. This is down on the £4,780,37 (£3.9 million without previews) that ’28 Years Later’ opened with in last June. However, there are definitely factors that influenced that. While last year’s film was certificated 15, this one has received the more-restrictive 18 rating. Last year’s film also had the advantage of having 18 years of hype since ’28 Weeks Later’ (£1,575,620, #2, 2007) and the return of original director Danny Boyle. Last year’s film was also very polarising with fans with a lot of people vocally hating the swings it took with the story. On directing duty this time is Nia DaCosta who has previously worked with franchises before in 2021’s ‘Candyman’ and ‘The Marvels’. The studio must have confidence in this film because the trilogy-closer has already been confirmed.

 

On pure weekend gross, ‘The Housemaid’ would be celebrating a second week at the top after a 20% drop on weekend four. It has already made £22.7 million (7x its opening weekend) without any signs of slowing down and is now less than £1.5 million away from knocking ‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’ out of the 2025 EOY top 10. In Lionsgate history, this now ranks sixth overall in the UK with only ‘The Hunger Games’ franchise and ‘La La Land’ above it. Next week it will be in the top 5 with the original’ The Hunger Games’ (£4,900,177, #1, 2012, £23.7 million total) well within in its sights.

 

The only other new entry this week is ‘Rental Family’ (£521,718, #7). Coming from Japanese director Hikari, this tells the story of a service that allows people to rent out actors to pretend to be other people in their lives. This was the first job taken by Brendan Fraser after his Oscar win for ‘The Whale’ and there was, at one time, buzz that he could repeat the feat with this. However, it has fallen well out of contention in the awards race, despite decent reviews, and I don’t think this debut is that bad in that context. We’ve already seen a few films completely bomb after missing out on awards (‘Christy’ anyone) so this looking to be a safe £1 million grosser isn’t too bad. We also do see one of the 25th anniversary re-releases of The Lord of the Rings trilogy make the top 10 with ‘Fellowship Of The Ring’ (£473,378, #8). It originally made £63 million in total.

 

The remaining six holdovers can be separated into ‘Oscar fare’ and ‘blockbuster fare’, although with their box-office, it’s hard to tell which one is which! Let’s start with the awards-side and ‘Hamnet’ which has an amazing second weekend, just dropping 20% (15% without previews). When paired with strong a strong midweek showing, the film is already sitting pretty at £8.4 million after two weekends. If we look at other awards contenders, this is better than where ‘First Battle After Another’, ‘Sinners’, ‘Marty Supreme’ and ‘Bugonia’ were at the same stage. Talking of ‘Marty Supreme’, it adds another £1.5 million (-28%) to end its fourth weekend just short of £12 million. It has now overtaken ‘Weapons’ to climb to #24 in the 2025 YTD chart. Another £2.7 million will see it enter the top 20.

 

‘Avatar: Fire And Ash’ bridges the gap between the two categories and remains above £1 million for the fifth weekend after dropping 35%. It will soon pass £40 million and then we’ll have to see if it has the extra £7 million needed to catch ‘Wicked: For Good’ and ‘Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy’. ‘Zootropolis 2’ finally (just) drops below £1 million after a 20% drop. It has now become the seventh film of 2025 to pass £30 million.  ‘The SpongeBob Movie: Search For SquarePants’ has a decent 24% drop while ‘Anacaonda’ has a heavier 43% drop. They both look to be on their last legs in the top 10.

 

There are two further new entry in the #11-15 section: ‘Mana Shankara Varaprasad Garu’ (#11) and ‘Parasakthi’ (#13). We also see a re-entry for 'The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers' at #15.

 

Next week sees the openings of ‘Saipan’, ‘Mercy’, ‘Return To Silent Hill’, ‘The History Of Sound’, ‘H Is For Hawk’, ‘No Other Choice’, ‘Heavyweight’, ‘Megadeth: Behind The Mask’ and ‘Hamlet: NT Live 2026’. Can any of them top the charts?

 

~

 

Nia DaCosta openings:

 

Candyman (£1,112,674, #2, 2021)

The Marvels (£3,465,783, #1, 2023)

Hedda (£5,233, #70, 2025)

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (£3,376,385, #1, 2026)

On 16/01/2026 at 15:29, J❄️hq said:

Slightly related to the secret screenings, but does anyone have any idea how Cineworld's "Unlimited" card and Odeon's "Limitless" card count towards the box office, if at all? Do they count as much as a standard adult admission, or for a lower amount (say £5 for every Unlimited or Limitless member who attends), or not at all? Because I think these secret screenings are mostly exclusives for Unlimited and Limitless members, aren't they? Or maybe I'm a bit confused and both things exist, with secret screenings being separate to 'Unlimited screenings' that Cineworld run but you still know what movie you're booking for.

I believe they do count at the standard going rate as the cinemas still have to pay the film studios the standard price.

23rd January 2026 - 25th January 2026

 

1. (02) The Housemaid - £2,038,034 (-28%) Weeks: 5 (£26,081,649)

2. (03) Hamnet - £1,964,266 (-25%) Weeks: 2 (£12,063,898)

3. (01) 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple - £1,228,024 (-64%) Weeks: 2 (£5,748,977)

4. (04) Avatar: Fire And Ash - £1,100,722 (-36%) Weeks: 6 (£40,168,960)

5. (06) Zootropolis 2 - £1,035,906 (+6%) Weeks: 9 (£31,655,748)

6. (05) Marty Supreme - £1,016,923 (-31%) Weeks: 5 (£13,612,449)

7. (NE) Saipan - £772,281 Weeks: 1 (£772,281)

8. (NE) No Other Choice - £621,340 Weeks; 1 (£621,340)

9. (NE) Mercy - £612,349 Weeks: 1 (£612,349)

10. (NE) Return To Silent Hill - £579,968 Weeks: 1 (£579,968)

 

Falling out:

Rental Family (1 week)

The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring (1 week)

The SpongeBob Movie: Search For SquarePants (4 weeks)

Anaconda (4 weeks)

For the second time in its 5-week run, ‘The Housemaid’ is the #1 film in the UK after it’s worst drop yet, a still measly 28% that sees it add another £2 million to the pot to reach £26 million in total. This now officially means it is Paul Feig’s biggest release, surpassing the £23 million of ‘Bridesmaids’. Unsurprisingly, it’s also the biggest hit for star Sydney Sweeney which previously would have been her small roll in Tarantino’s ‘Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood” (£21.3 million). It has also officially entered the top 10 films of 2025 in the UK, knocking out ‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’ and meaning it’s a rare year where no Marvel films make the YE top 10. With the rate its going, could it possible challenge ‘Lilo & Stitch’ (£36.9 million) to enter the top 5?

 

It was a busy week for new entries with four making the top 10. However, they all enter between #7-10. And it’s a weekend where the previews count for a lot as the highest new entry, would have actually missed the top 10 based on just the weekend gross. Said film is ‘Saipan’ (£772,281, £84k without previews). Although, calling them ‘previews’ is very misleading. Just like with ‘Kneecap’ in 2024 (if you can remember that far back), this is an Irish film which opened in its native country multiple weeks before reaching England, Scotland and Wales. So, this £772k opening figure includes grosses from the four-weeks it’s already been available in both Northern and the Republic of Ireland. The film is a recreation of the famous 2002 falling out between legendary Irish footballer Roy Keane and then manager (and ex-player) of the Republic of Ireland football team, (and Yorkshireman) Mick McCarthy that led to Keane leaving the World Cup squad in South Korea/Japan. It did feel like it might have limited appeal outside of Ireland and that’s proved the case with less than 10% of the £772k being from the other nations.

 

Also benefiting from previews is ‘No Other Choice’ (£621,340, £432k without previews) at #8. This is the latest from South Korean director Park Chan-wook, famous for his Vengeance Trilogy, and marks his best ever debut beating ‘The Handmaiden’ (£474,752, #6, 2017). This is a dark-comedy about a recently-sacked papermaker (portrayed by ‘Squid Game’ and ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ star Lee Byung-hun) who attempts to murder his rivals for a job opportunity that he desperately needs. The film has earned rave reviews but, perhaps surprisingly, missed out on a nom for ‘Best International Feature’ at the recently announced 98^th Academy Awards. But this is a wonderful opening so who needs that? In fact, this is the second-best opening for a (predominately) Korean film, only beat the historic, Best-Picture winner ‘Parasite’ (£1,397,387, #4, 2020). That film doubled its takings in week 2 after its Oscar win, it would be asking a lot for this to do the same. But becoming his third £1 million+ hit will be a success. This also marks the third biggest opening for MUBI after ‘The Substance’ (£591,247, #3, 2024) and ‘Priscilla' (£1,326,326, #3, 2024).

 

Opening at #9, and the true biggest new release based on pure weekend gross, is Chris Pratt’s AI-thriller ‘Mercy’ (£612,349). In a plot that feels oh so similar to ‘Minority Report’ (£4,506,315, #1, 2002), Pratt plays a man who gets put on trial in a system he helped create by an AI judge who gives him an hour to prove he didn’t murder his wife. It has earned awful reviews but already seems to have a fanbase calling it underrated. Not a great opening for a $60 million budgeted film at all, but honestly, I was expecting worse. It’s probably the only non-Avatar film in years that has really tried to push the 3D gimmick.

 

The final new entry this week is ‘Return To Silent Hill’ (£579,968) at #10. The third attempt as making a film based on the popular horror video-game franchise, this had the worst opening of the lot. This sees French director Christophe Gans return after previously directing the 2006 original (£991,687, #2). That one held on to make £3.6 million while sequel ‘Silent Hill: Revelation’ opened slightly higher (£1,043,068, #3, 2012) but ended much lower (£1.7 million). This is based on the second video-game and has a low budget ($23 million). It’s made $19 million worldwide in its opening weekend which isn’t disastrous.   

 

All of the six holdovers in the top 10 all made £1 million+ in another great weekend to start 2026. In fact, every weekend of January 2026 been up on the equivalent weekend of 2025 meaning we are currently tracking a strong 22% ahead after one month. This has been helped by the blockbuster performance of this year’s Award contenders with ‘Hamnet’ climbing back up to #2 in weekend 3 after dropping just 25% to add another £2 million while ‘Marty Supreme’ drops to #6 after shredding 31%. ‘Hamnet’ is now up to £12 million and is closing in on ‘Eternals’ to become Zhao’s biggest film while ‘Marty Supreme’ has now overtaken Chalamet’s 2025 Oscar contender ‘A Complete Unknown’ after clearing £13.5 million.

 

Last week’s top film ’28 Years Later: The Bone Temple’ drops to #3 after dropping 64% (49% without previews). Its doing better over here than its doing in America but its still looking like its going to be a big drop-off versus last year’s ’28 Years Later’ (£9,704,463 at the same stage). ‘Avatar: Fire And Ash’ missed out on a Best Picture nomination and sees a 36% drop in week 6. It has now passed £40 million but it’s still very questionable whether it has enough left to climb above #4 in the 2025 YE chart. Remarkably, the ‘Zootropolis’ train is not showing any signs of slowing down with ‘Zootropolis 2’ re-entering the top 5 in week 9 after a 6% increase sees it climb back above £1 million for the weekend. At £31.6 million, it’s very close to passing 2004’s ‘The Incredibles’ (£32.4 million) when it comes to Disney-owned animated films.

 

There are three further new entries in the #11-15 section: ‘Border 2’ (#12), ‘H Is For Hawk’ (#13) and ‘The History Of Sound’ (#14).

 

Next week sees the openings of ‘Is This Thing On?’, ‘Primate’, ‘Shelter’, ‘Kangaroo’, ‘Nouvelle Vague’, ‘Rabbit Trap’, ‘Mardaani 3’, ‘Another World’ and ‘Melania’. Can any of them top the charts?

 

~

 

Timur Bekmambetov openings:

 

Night Watch (£271,857, #8, 2005)

Day Watch (£95,574, #14, 2007)

Wanted (£3,814,055, #2, 2008)

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (£1,119,117, #1, 2012)

Ben-Hur (£1,047,800, #2, 2016)

Mercy (£612,349, #9, 2026)

The Housemaid is unstoppable. Hoping Primate does well though

As much as I’m glad that “Saipan” made the top 10 (I worked as an extra with someone who played a journalist in that film), it seems like a real cheat that a film can be open for nearly month and not have its figures recorded until it opens nationwide.

Also, clucking bell, The Housemaid turning into a phenomenon wasn’t on my UK box Office bingo card a few weeks ago.

I am still shopk that this chqrt is just two days long and that these films probably make x3 the money the chart shows!!

My local Cineworld is refurbing a few screens of theirs meaning very few films are being shown. Rather than show new films, they milk the same ones that have been out for over a month ie. Housemaid and Avatar. Those films need removing to make way for the new ones. I’m sure the people who wanna watch both films will have watched them by now

1 hour ago, Hadji said:

My local Cineworld is refurbing a few screens of theirs meaning very few films are being shown. Rather than show new films, they milk the same ones that have been out for over a month ie. Housemaid and Avatar. Those films need removing to make way for the new ones. I’m sure the people who wanna watch both films will have watched them by now

Well... Housemaid is pretty much the only one that's still selling in high enough demand so... why would they go for a new release when they're on limited capacity? The new release slate has been (and always usually is in January) quite poor. Commercial cinema's (like Cineworld, VUE, Showcase etc..) with reduced/limited capacity can't afford to take risks on a film like 'Mercy' etc.. when 'Housemaid' is still the number 1 movie in the Country and still getting people in their droves.

Doubt any of them will do anything but I’m hosting film screenings of Peter Hujar’s Day, A History of Sound and Twinless in the next few weeks.

Hoping one of them can crack the top 10/20

6 minutes ago, Herbs said:

Doubt any of them will do anything but I’m hosting film screenings of Peter Hujar’s Day, A History of Sound and Twinless in the next few weeks.

Hoping one of them can crack the top 10/20

I'd probably say that 'The History of Sound' will definitely make the top 10 (I assume in the lower region) but 'Twinless'... they hype for that film was 6 months ago! It's so annoying that we often get those smaller, indie titles months later... (the bigger movies not as long but can be a couple months at least!)

It's 2026... HOW are we not dual releasing EVERYWHERE at the same time??? </3

Its so ridiculous. Like we're just getting twinless/no other choice/so many oscar movies now?

1 hour ago, Tafty said:

Well... Housemaid is pretty much the only one that's still selling in high enough demand so... why would they go for a new release when they're on limited capacity? The new release slate has been (and always usually is in January) quite poor. Commercial cinema's (like Cineworld, VUE, Showcase etc..) with reduced/limited capacity can't afford to take risks on a film like 'Mercy' etc.. when 'Housemaid' is still the number 1 movie in the Country and still getting people in their droves.

Or maybe they’re watching Housemaid because there’s not much else on. I’m sure they’d pick other films if there was more of a choice. When people go to cinema and see that Housemaid is one of the few films being shown, they’ll choose that. It’s not like they’re planning to go and watch it. They’ll go cinema, see what’s on then choose and people do watch films over and over again. I watch a film once and that’s it

Just now, Hadji said:

Or maybe they’re watching Housemaid because there’s not much else on. I’m sure they’d pick other films if there was more of a choice. When people go to cinema and see that Housemaid is one of the few films being shown, they’ll choose that. It’s not like they’re planning to go and watch it. They’ll go cinema, see what’s on then choose and people do watch films over and over again. I watch a film once and that’s it

I'm not sure they would pick different movies "if there was more of a choice"... they clearly aren't as 'The Housemaid' is the number 1 film in the UK and the nearest "new film" in the charts to it didn't even go top 5... people will watch what they want to watch. The appeal for 'Mercy' is way more limited than it is for 'The Housemaid'. Especially when comparing the reviews and virality of the movies - which all play some kind of factor into what people will go and see.

I'm not sure your one cinema is going to have a huge effect on the box office takings of the movies that are missing out on the screens due to refurbishment. As I said, a movie that is a month into it's release and still has enough hype to sell out shows is FAR MORE APPEALING to an owner than a new release that would sell 20 tickets overall on pre-sales... for example... They need to make revenue and their money back from the huge refurbishment that is happening, somehow. It's not their fault if other movies aren't selling more than 'The Housemaid' 5+ weeks into it's release...

Their schedules are literally based on what sells and what doesn't. The screens that are open will be for movies that have sold the best for them the previous week. It's that simple...

7 minutes ago, Tafty said:

I'm not sure they would pick different movies "if there was more of a choice"... they clearly aren't as 'The Housemaid' is the number 1 film in the UK and the nearest "new film" in the charts to it didn't even go top 5... people will watch what they want to watch. The appeal for 'Mercy' is way more limited than it is for 'The Housemaid'. Especially when comparing the reviews and virality of the movies - which all play some kind of factor into what people will go and see.

I'm not sure your one cinema is going to have a huge effect on the box office takings of the movies that are missing out on the screens due to refurbishment. As I said, a movie that is a month into it's release and still has enough hype to sell out shows is FAR MORE APPEALING to an owner than a new release that would sell 20 tickets overall on pre-sales... for example... They need to make revenue and their money back from the huge refurbishment that is happening, somehow. It's not their fault if other movies aren't selling more than 'The Housemaid' 5+ weeks into it's release...

Their schedules are literally based on what sells and what doesn't. The screens that are open will be for movies that have sold the best for them the previous week. It's that simple...

I have two cinemas near me; a Cineworld and an odeon. People I know who normally go Cineworld have been going to odeon to watch the films that cineworld aren’t showing. They removed Mercy from IMAX to show Avatar in its place which is the worst Avatar film so far. My local Cineworld didn’t show Dogma in November because there was no room for it due to the first part of the refurb and cinemas make money when they show classic films. I watched Mulholland Drive last week and I wasn’t expecting it to be rammed. Also because of the ongoing refurb, they only open afternoons in the week with the U and PG rated films only showing on weekends. At least they’re showing all of this weeks new releases; Iron Lung, Shelter, Primate, Kangaroo (weekend only). The only one that’s not showing at my local Cineworld is Is This Thing On? which I’m not bothered about as I found it boring

Edited Friday at 15:371 day by Hadji