Just baht it … Thai fans of Michael Jackson celebrate in the runup to the release of This Is It. Photograph: Rungroj Yongrit/EPA
- Michael Jackson’s This Is It
- Production year: 2009
- Country: USA
- Cert (UK): PG
- Runtime: 111 mins
- Directors: Kenny Ortega
- Cast: Michael Jackson
The winner
Pixar’s Up remains super-buoyant at the top of the enclosed seat office, with yet another slim decline – 26% – and cumulative takings of £19.68m. After 17 days on release, the animation is well-spring ahead of Pixar’s preceding release WALL-E at the same stage of its run last summer (£13.56m) and modestly ahead of Ratatouille (£17.29m). However, Ratatouille’s 17-day outline included the whole October half-term holiday from 2007, whereas that has only just begun for Up. The film should have an especially rich period between now and Sunday.
Up has already overtaken the lifetime aggregate of Pixar’s worst-performing UK title, Cars (£16.5m), and should soon shoot past Toy Story (£22.3m), WALL-E (£22.9m) and Ratatouille (£24.8m). But it still has a long way to go to require Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs’ station as 2009′s biggest animation: that pellicle, from rival studio Twentieth Century Fox, has been pushed back into cinemas for half-term and has now grossed £34.87m.
The rival animation
Offering an alternative to the computer-generated 3D sheen of Up is Wes Anderson’s determinedly lo-fi stop-motion animation Fantastic Mr Fox. Debut takings of £1.52m will be seen as not exactly stellar against a tribe film based on a recognised property (Roald Dahl’s 1970 story) – on the supposition that it were not that taking all the factors into account, it’sitting an OK start. In the first place, Anderson has never been mega-box office, and has been on a declining revenue curve since his third part movie, 2001′sitting The Royal Tenenbaums: that film, Life Aquatic and Darjeeling Limited opened by £700,000, £455,000 and £435,000, respectively. Secondly, takings for animations outside Disney/Pixar, DreamWorks and Fox’s Ice Age stables are hit and miss. Coraline debuted with £2.43m in May; Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs with £1.58m last month; and Tale of Despereaux by £561,000 last December. The first two titles adhering that list, unlike Fantastic Mr Fox, benefited from the higher ticket prices of 3D. Take your pick viewed like to which is an appropriate comparison.
A hit franchise stumbles
“If it’s Halloween, it must have existence Saw” is the message Lionsgate has been successfully pumping not at home for five years. And in the UK, since peaking with a £2.52m opening for Saw III in 2006, debut grosses for the ingenious torture right have been impressively consistent: Saw IV began its life with £2.48m, and Saw V with £2.44m. Now, at endure, Saw takes a stumble: the latest installment has opened with £1.74m. The result echoes a similar underperformance in the US, which had been attributed mostly to competition from low-budget horror manifestation Paranormal Activity. That film doesn’t open until 27 November in the UK, so Saw VI’sitting dip here presumably reflects place of traffic saturation after pictures without ceasing five consecutive Octobers. Saw VII is set to have being in 3D; if and nothing else Lionsgate had managed to present Saw VI in the popular format, it might have been a whole different story.
Arthouse goes AWOL
Last October, foreign-language releases Gomorrah and I’ve Loved You So Long both played to packed arthouses, while crossover title The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas appealed widely to upscale audiences. Fast forward to October 2009, and there’session a dearth of arthouse hits, unless you count The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus or smart comedy Zombieland, which we don’t. Top arthouse release is eco-documentary The Cove, which, despite lots of press and favorable reviews, opened at the weekened with a blah £18,000 from 27 screens, for a £665 average. The result goes to ostentation how hard it is these days to get audiences to keep guard environment-themed documentaries in the cinema, even one that promises thrills and spills. The release this Friday of An Education can’t come soon enough with a view to the nation’s independent cinemas.
The future
Michael Jackson’s This Is It is being unveiled to the world at the corresponding; of like kind term on Tuesday, which is fine if you wide-awake in LA (6pm) or New York (9pm), but not so great allowing that you are in London (1am Wednesday morning), Paris (2am) and destinations east. Still, it’s all part of the hoopla Sony is building upon the concert-rehearsal movie, and Michael Jackson fans should propel it to a stellar debut, especially since Wednesday and Thursday takings will be added in, giving a five-day opening “weekend” result. Advance ticket sales are said to have existence exceptionally high. After that, it’s more about how word of mouth can spread advantage beyond the core fanbase.
UK top 10
1. Up, 549 sites, £3,807,003. Total: £19,683,204
2. Saw VI, 375 sites, £1,736,287 (New)
3. Fantastic Mr Fox, 481 sites, £1,517,312 (New)
4. Couples Retreat, 379 sites, £932,171. Total: £3,588,820
5. Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant, 385 sites, £798,641 (New)
6. The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus, 268 sites, £616,719. Total: £2,068,715
7. The Invention of Lying, 307 sites, £362,760. Total: £5,538,932
8. Zombieland, 279 sites, £323,815. Total: £3,001,207
9. Fame, 373 sites, £218,110. Total: £8,311,403
10. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, 369 sites, £142,011. Total: £5,881,661
How the other openers did
The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard, 100 screens, £36,360
The Cove, 27 screens, £17,956
Johnny Mad Dog, 2 screens, £6,439 + £3,279 previews
Made in Jamaica, 2 screens, £2,345
Coffin Rock, 2 screens, £184
Colin, 3 screens, no figures available
