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Home Blog Latest Thor Hammers Home UK Box Office Success
Thor Hammers Home UK Box Office Success Print E-mail
Written by Ivan Radford   
Thursday, 05 May 2011 12:04

Thor hammered its way to the top of the UK Box Office last weekend to take home £5.45m. 


Marvel were hoping that the Norse god of thunder would strike hard in the UK, given that Thor's the cornerstone for all upcoming Avengers releases.


To avoid any threat of the Royal Wedding distracting cinema-goers, they promptly stuck three days of previews on the front of the film, picking up £2.3m from Monday, Wednesday and Thursday combined. Include the bank holiday Monday on the other side of the weekend and Thor smashes clean past the £6m mark. 


It's a convincing show from Kenneth Branagh's superhero, one that matches the results from the less hirsute Fast and Furious Five on the weekend before. It's no surprise, then, that the Vin Diesel car flick is still speeding along in second place.


With a drop of less than 40%, Fast Five has a current total of £11m odd, which almost equals the £13.5m final gross from the fourth Fast and Furious film in 2009. No wonder Justin Lin is gearing up for a sixth.

 

 

The weekend's other new release is a neatly counter-programmed move from Momentum, who braved the sunshine with a horror movie. Boosted by its Saw-associated director James Wan, Insidious took £1.4m from the weekend, which isn't bad compared to Scream 4's £2m debut two weeks ago. 


Wes Craven's sequel is still holding over despite a drop of 45%. It's now down in sixth with a total of £6m, so the spooky playing field is wide open for Insidious to dominate.


Otherwise, it's a week of standard holiday fare, led by Rio and Arthur - both of whom saw miniscule dips of 10% and 9% respectively. Hop, in seventh, had a more conventional 30% loss, while Beastly flopped again in eighth place. Either way, it's reassuring to see Source Code still inside the UK Top Ten, now on a total of £5.7m. Duncan Jones fans can be proud.


Less pleased will be Fox Searchlight, whose comedy Cedar Rapids barely registered in the UK with a tiny plop of £146k from a wide spread of 180 screens. With a per-screen average of around £800, Cedar Rapids will be getting that sinking feeling, while The Veteran had an even lower turnout, taking on average somewhere close to £237 from each of its 45 cinemas to reach a total of just over £10,000. 


Still, there's good news for TT3D: Closer to the Edge, which hangs on to enough screens to chalk up almost £600k. Maybe someone will take notice and realise that 3D works better for documentaries than it does blockbusters. 


The curious thing now will be see what Hanna can do on Friday with its arthouse-action leanings. Can Saoirse Ronan steal Robert Pattinson's audience from Water for Elephants? Or will Thor just trample over them both?

 

For the full UK box office figures, head over to Box Office Mojo.

 

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