12 Years a Slave dislodges the Big Three

The Big Three have had their time at the top, introducing the next big players…

It was obvious a new heavy hitter was needed to move the consistent top three of American Hustle, The Hobbit 2 and Frozen out of their positions, and we certainly have that in 12 Years a Slave. Bringing in over £2.5 million on its opening weekend, 12 Years a Slave is based on true events and follows the life of Solomon Northup, as he’s kidnapped and sold into slavery. ‘12 Years a Slave continues Steve McQueen’s vividly stark exploration into the human psyche, but this film steps up his performance ten fold’ – have a read of the full review here.

Despite this new competition, American Hustle still managed to generate almost £2 million this weekend, The Hobbit sequel gained just over £1.5 million and Frozen brought in around £1.3 million. This is most impressive for the winter based animation, Frozen, as it’s currently the longest running film in the top 10, followed by The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. All three are likely to keep pulling in audiences for a good while yet.

Other new films that made it into the box office include The Railway Man and Delivery Man; with stark differences in style and genre, they generated within £130k of each other, and both hit £1.1m. Whereas we predicted last week that they could challenge the top five last week, they only fell slightly short by approximately £63k in 6th and 7th place; probably appropriate for a middle-of-the-road Vince Vaughan comedy but more would have been expected of Colin Firth’s drama based on real events.

Coming Over the Next Week

The coming weekend is all about the Oscar-tipped Leonardo DiCaprio comedy-drama, The Wolf of Wall Street, which looks to be a really enjoyable film. It’s likely to still have stiff competition from 12 Years a Slave, but we think the more light-hearted bio-comedy will prove to be a more attractive proposition to the average cinemagoer. Either way, we’re expecting it to land within the top three.

For those looking for something a little scarier, we also see the release of Devil’s Due; finally, a horror film that focuses on a sinister pregnancy that uses the carrying mother as the host. Just what we’ve all been waiting for… However, this has arrived at the perfect time, with audiences now fed up of 10th placed, Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones.

What are you looking forward to seeing the most this weekend? Let us know in the comments below.

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