The winner: Finding Dory

Returning to the top spot in its fourth week of play, Finding Dory has ended the two-week reign of Suicide Squad. While Suicide Squad saw its box office decline 40% from the previous weekend, Finding Dory rose 12%. Weather most likely played a factor across the market, with weekend rain proving a boon to cinemas. Family films also scored particularly well, with audiences returning from holidays abroad and catching up on titles they missed. The BFG rose 10%, for example, and Pete’s Dragon fell a slim 6%.

After 24 days of play, Finding Dory has reached £32.4m, breathing down the neck of The Secret Life of Pets, the year’s top animated title so far on £33.7m. The Pixar sequel is only the sixth film this year to crack £30m, along with The Jungle Book, Deadpool, Captain America: Civil War, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and The Secret Life of Pets. Three of the six are Disney titles, with one apiece from Fox, Warners and Universal. Warners’ Suicide Squad, on £27.7m so far, looks set to be the next 2016 release to make it into the £30m club.

With another two weeks before kids return to school in England and Wales, and the upcoming August Bank Holiday weekend, there should be plenty more life left in Finding Dory. Last summer, Pixar’s Inside Out had reached £30.7m at the same stage of the summer holiday, and ultimately reached £39.2m, boosted by a return to cinemas in the October half-term holiday. Look for the pattern to repeat with Dory.

King of the newbies: David Brent

Seeing off the challenge of Lights Out, Swallows and Amazons and Nine Lives, Ricky Gervais’s David Brent: Life on the Road was the top new release of the weekend, landing in the chart in third place. A debut gross of £1.46m compares with a very similar £1.43m plus £744,000 in previews for the opening salvo of Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa back in August 2013. Both films are cringe comedies celebrating man-child narcissists, that achieved big-screen success years after the respective characters’ peak TV popularity. Alpha Papa ended on £6.2m in the UK, which would be a very decent final result for Life on the Road.

Among the widely released new films (300 cinemas or more), the wooden spoon goes to Nine Lives, featuring Kevin Spacey as a businessman who finds himself trapped in the body of the family cat. The film charted in ninth place. A PG rating will see it play to families looking for a comedy, but it isn’t specifically positioned as a children’s film.

Strength in depth

For only the fourth time this year, six movies delivered weekend grosses above £1m. But the strength in the market goes deeper than that, with 14 films contributing weekend box office above £300,000. That’s the first time this has happened since the middle of January 2015, when titles on release included leftover holiday season fare such as Annie and Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb, and awards contenders including The Theory of Everything, American Sniper, Into the Woods, Birdman, Whiplash, Wild, Testament of Youth and Foxcatcher.

Admissions update

Admissions figures – the number of tickets sold – are in for July, and they show a healthy 4.5% rise on July 2015. They also show the highest July total since 2011, when Transformers: Dark of the Moon and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 were on offer. The top new releases in July last year were Inside Out and Ant-Man, but that month also benefited from a huge chunk of the box office for Minions, which was released on 26 June, as well as a tidy amount for June release Jurassic World.

Pets mean prizes ... The Secret Life of Pets: one of the titles bumping admission figures 4.5% since July 2015 Photograph: Universal

July 2016 has delivered the biggest number of admissions for any month so far this year, after a June with a rather cautious set of releases due to the anticipated competition for audiences from European Championship football. The Secret Life of Pets, released on 24 June, scored the majority of its admissions during July, while new releases included Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie and The BFG. Finding Dory and Jason Bourne both contributed one weekend of play right at the end of the month.

After seven months, admissions are overall 3.3% down on the same period of 2015, but also 7.7% up on the first seven months of 2014. Last year was a particularly strong year for box office – in the UK and globally – buoyed by strong titles including Jurassic World. In contrast, 2014 was notably weak. Cinema owners will be pretty happy to see admissions only modestly down on 2015, and so far August is proving strong relative to a year ago, buoyed by Suicide Squad, Finding Dory, Jason Bourne and continuing success for The BFG, which grossed more than £11m of its £25.8m total in August.

The indie hits: Wiener-Dog and The Childhood of a Leader

While summer 2016 has generally been poor for indie films, the season is ending on a brighter note with both Wiener-Dog and Childhood of a Leader. Todd Solondz’s canine-themed dark comedy has grossed a nifty £218,000 after 10 days, which is way ahead of the lifetime box office of his earlier films Storytelling (£113,00), Palindromes (£101,000), Life During Wartime (£62,000) and Dark Horse (£30,000). It’s also ahead of 1997’s Welcome to the Dollhouse (£172,000), the first Solondz title to earn a theatrical release in the UK. It is, however, still a long way behind 1999’s Happiness, which grossed an impressive £648,000 here.

The Childhood of a Leader, the feature directing debut of actor Brady Corbet (Mysterious Skin, Funny Games), has begun with an encouraging £53,000 from 23 cinemas, including £2,000 in previews. It’s a happy outcome for the film, after its original distributor Metrodome went in to administration last week. Fellow arthouse distributor Soda stepped in to take over the title, perhaps encouraged by the glowing reviews that were stacking up in key outlets including the Guardian and Telegraph.

The future

Despite the lack of any major new release at the weekend, the rainy weather helped the UK box office achieve a soft landing, a surprise 3% up on the previous frame, and also a healthy 37% up on the equivalent session from 2015, when Paper Towns topped the chart in its first week of release. Cinema bookers are now hoping that the forthcoming Bank Holiday weekend can deliver a nice closer to the summer. The comedy Bad Moms has already proved a solid hit in the US, with $86m so far. The Purge: Election Year has grossed a similar $79m there. War Dogs, starring Miles Teller and Jonah Hill as America’s youngest and least likely arms dealers, opened in the US at the weekend with a robust $15m, but is perhaps a tougher sell here in the UK. Mechanic: Resurrection offers more Jason Statham, while the Andy Samberg comedy Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping looks like quite a distribution challenge for the UK market. Indie cinemas and upscale multiplexes will have a lot of hopes pinned on Perdo Almodóvar’s Julieta, especially given the director’s track record of success with films released on the August holiday weekend. Monday sees the arrival of Noel Clarke’s Brotherhood, the final part of a trilogy that began with Kidulthood (2006) and Adulthood (2008).

Top 10 films for 19-21 August

1. Finding Dory, £2,868,459 from 627 sites. Total: £32,358,650

2. Suicide Squad, £2,549,043 from 580 sites. Total: £27,668,748

3. David Brent: Life on the Road, £1,460,290 from 506 sites (new)

4. Jason Bourne, £1,263,975 from 533 sites. Total: £19,718,874

5. The BFG, £1,236,002 from 562 sites. Total: £25,767,760

6. Lights Out, £1,126,543 from 440 sites (new)



7. Pete’s Dragon, £794,362 from 562 sites. Total: £2,389,338

8. Swallows and Amazons, £676,175 from 452 sites (new)

9. Nine Lives, £636,804 from 374 sites (new)

10. Star Trek Beyond, £400,350 from 308 sites. Total: £15,002,852

Other openers

Asterix: The Mansion of the Gods, £55,818 from 254 sites

The Childhood of a Leader, £52,613 from 23 sites

Happy Bhag Jayegi, £48,507 from 29 sites

Tickled, £25,602 from 14 sites

Blinky Bill the Movie, £21,304 from 149 sites

Viva, £15,234 from 7 sites (Ireland only)

Get Squirrely, £13,832 from 82 sites

Main Teri Tu Mera, £9,140 from 9 sites

Black, £1,760 from 4 sites

Cosmos, £1,573 from 4 sites

Gajalu, £1,289 from 1 site

Almost Holy, £978 from 1 site

Half Ticket, £868 from 9 sites

Clean Hands, £269 from 1 site

400 Days, £44 from 3 sites

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