The indie winner: I, Daniel Blake

It won the Palme d’Or in Cannes, comes from a beloved British auteur and has garnered critical acclaim, but would Ken Loach’s I, Daniel Blake prove too tough a sell for cinema audiences? If UK distributor eOne had any qualms, they have surely evaporated now that I, Daniel Blake has opened with an impressive £404,000 from 94 cinemas, and £445,000 including previews. Stripping out the previews, site average is a very robust £4,298.

Loach’s most recent previous feature, Jimmy’s Hall, from 2014, was a relative commercial disappointment, achieving £543,000 in its lifetime (its full theatrical run). Before that, he had documentary The Spirit of ’45 (£236,000 lifetime). Then there was 2012’s The Angels’ Share, which eOne successfully positioned as a mainstream comedy in Scotland and as an arthouse title in the rest of the UK, achieving a total of £1.98m. Loach’s biggest-ever hit in his home market remains The Wind That Shakes the Barley (£3.91m), a particular success that may be attributed to the fact that the UK and Ireland is one combined box office territory, and this Irish revolutionary tale scored huge numbers in the Republic.

The challenge for eOne with I, Daniel Blake was to position the film as inspiring rather than depressing angry-making, and the film’s rousing marketing image, with the graffiti title treatment and lead actor Dave Johns’ defiant raised left fist, has evidently punched through that feeling to audiences.

The mainstream winner: Trolls

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Following Kung Fu Panda 3, The Secret Life of Pets, Finding Dory and Sausage Party, Trolls is the fifth animated film so far this year to land at the UK box office top spot. Weekend takings of £3.01m add to previews of £2.43m for a £5.44m debut. For comparison, the last non-sequel from DreamWorks Animation, Home, began in March 2015 with £6.03m, not including previews. Distribution partner Fox will be hoping to pick up the pace this week with Trolls, as the October half-term holiday creates huge daily availability of the family audience.

The surprising omission from that list of 2016 animated chart toppers is Zootropolis, which lost out on the top spot successively to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, The Huntsman: Winter’s War and The Jungle Book. Additionally, titles such as The BFG and The Jungle Book contain significant portions of animation. Top animation for the year so far is Finding Dory, with £42.4m.

The runner-up: Jack Reacher

Once again, a Jack Reacher film has failed to claim the chart summit. The first one failed to dislodge The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and Life of Pi from the top two chart places when it arrived Boxing Day weekend in 2012. Now sequel Jack Reacher: Never Go Back is bested by Trolls.

Never Go Back opens with £2.42m, and £2.69m including previews. That compares with Jack Reacher’s debut of £2.33m, and £3.58m including more extensive previews. The original Jack Reacher film maxed out at £9.45m, and distributor Paramount would presumably be delighted to match that number this time around.

Admissions update

Admissions figures – number of tickets sold – are in for September, and they make encouraging reading for UK cinemas. September is not traditionally a strong month for cinemagoing, and admissions of 11.66m represent a 26% increase on the same month last year. In fact, this has been the busiest September for UK cinemas since 1997, when The Full Monty pulled in audiences across the land.

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Overall, admissions are 2.3% up on 2015 for the first nine months of the year – a perhaps surprising outcome given the lack of any equivalent giant 2016 hit to match last year’s Jurassic World. The real challenge for cinemas comes in the final quarter since, with respect to Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Rogue One, these titles may struggle to match Spectre and Star Wars: The Force Awakens from the fourth quarter of 2015. October, November and December last year all saw admissions above 15m.

The future

The arrival of Trolls and Jack Reacher: Never Go Back saw box office rise 5% from the previous frame, and also a very encouraging 38% up from the equivalent weekend from 2015, when Paranormal Activity: Ghost Dimension was the top new release. Cinemas are eagerly welcoming Marvel’s Doctor Strange, which lands today (25 October). Rival distributors are running scared, which has created an opportunity for arthouse titles to position as alternatives. StudioCanal offers Korean smash Train to Busan, which delivers zombie carnage on a bullet train, while Curzon has arthouse drama After Love from the Belgian director Joachim Lafosse. Universal and Vertigo present the rather delightful animation Ethel & Ernest, adapted from Raymond Briggs’s illustrated memoir about his own parents. The BFI rereleases John Singleton’s Boyz n the Hood as part of its Black Star nationwide season. Starfish, starring Tom Riley and Joanne Froggatt, is the true story of Tom Ray, who had to adapt to life after a rare blood disease led to massively invasive surgery.

Top 10 films 21-23 October

1. Trolls, £5,440,878 from 608 sites (new)

2. Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, £2,688,561 from 519 sites (new)

3. The Girl on the Train, £1,996,858 from 611 sites. Total: £17,732,005

4. Inferno, £1,297,970 from 560 sites. Total: £5,755,230

5. Bridget Jones’s Baby, £1,123,971 from 514 sites. Total: £44,531,175

6. Ouija: Origin of Evil, £779,626 from 408 sites (new)

7. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, £736,177 from 517 sites. Total: £10,028,475

8. Storks, £668,760 from 555 sites. Total: £3,425,226

9. I, Daniel Blake, £444,800 from 94 sites (new)

10. Keeping Up with the Joneses, £271,306 from 295 sites (new)

Other openers

Don Giovanni – Met Opera, £254,469 from 177 sites

Queen of Katwe, £73,754 from 133 sites

White Island, £19,327 from 22 sites

LittleScreen October, £17,575 from 101 sites

The Third Party, £8,440 from three sites

31st October, £5,674 from 11 sites

Sonita, £3,883 from three sites

Ikimizin Yerine, £2,958 from three sites

Desi Munde, £2,354 from four sites

In Pursuit of Silence, £1,981 from three sites

Visaranai, £1,589 from two sites

Lakeeran, £1,050 from five sites

Phantom Boy, £912 from 21 sites

Premam, £855 from five sites

Before the Flood, £808 from one site

• Thanks to comScore. All figures relate to takings in UK and Ireland cinemas.