The winner: La La Land

Each awards season, the market typically anoints one runaway box-office winner that captures the imagination of audiences, with notable examples from the last decade being The King’s Speech (2011) and Slumdog Millionaire (2009). Last year, that film was The Revenant – a 156-minute survival ordeal that hardly looked a commercial slam-dunk on paper, but which achieved a muscular £23.4m by the end of its UK run.

La La Land equals record for most Oscar nominations Read more

This year, the winner is La La Land, which grossed £4.37m in its second weekend of play (down a slim 23% from the opening frame), for an 11-day total of £14.91m. For comparison, The Revenant had reached £12.01m after two weekends. While La La Land benefits from some strong commercial elements, notably likable actors Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone in the lead roles, the film represented a huge risk. Successful movie musicals in recent years have overwhelmingly been adapted from stage hits, from Chicago to Mamma Mia! and Dreamgirls. La La Land benefits from no existing audience familiarity with the source material. As for director Damien Chazelle, his biggest previous hit in the UK, Whiplash, grossed £2.3m.

La La Land has an 8.7/10 user rating at IMDb, and a 93/100 score at MetaCritic. It equalled the Oscars record this week with 14 nominations.

The runner-up: Split

Despite a nice run of hits with The Sixth Sense (1999), Unbreakable (2000) and Signs (2002), film-maker M Night Shyamalan has proved commercially patchy over the last decade, underwhelming with Lady in the Water, The Happening, The Last Airbender and After Earth. His last effort, the low-budget The Visit, would have returned a healthy profit thanks to a worldwide cinema gross just below $100m. Now Shyamalan’s latest offering, Split, opens in the UK with £2.55m from 450 cinemas. That’s his biggest box office debut since The Village kicked off with £2.95m in 2004. The Visit began with £1.03m from 413 venues, including previews of £209,000, in September 2015, on its way to a total of £2.93m.

Split also represents a good result for star James McAvoy, who has lately struggled to deliver commercial hits beyond X-Men and animation (Arthur Christmas, Gnomeo & Juliet). Victor Frankenstein was an expensive flop, with a lifetime gross of just £923,000. In 2013, Danny Boyle’s Trance (£4.53m lifetime) was considered a disappointment, and ditto Eran Creevy’s Welcome to the Punch (£1.17m). Jon Baird’s low-budget Filth, based on the Irvine Welsh novel, delivered a profitable £3.91m at UK cinemas.

The real runner-up: Sing

Missing from the comScore chart because its official release date is this Friday is Sing, the latest animation from Universal’s Illumination Entertainment (Despicable Me, The Secret Life of Pets). However, the film played extensive previews on Saturday and Sunday, delivering a very robust £4.2m. That’s the biggest preview figure for a non-sequel animation, and augurs yet another sizable hit for Illumination. The Secret Life of Pets reached £36.4m last year.

The awards season battle

While La La Land is the runaway winner among this year’s awards contenders, three other titles in the UK top 10 are battling for the attention of audiences. Lion (£1.27m from 369 cinemas) and Jackie (£663,000 from 197) both debuted at the weekend, while Manchester By the Sea (second frame takings of £522,000) continued its successful run. Kenneth Lonergan’s drama has now reached £1.65m after 10 days.

Of the three, Garth Davis’ inspirational true tale Lion is the most obvious commercial crowdpleaser, and is less dependent on success in the awards races. Pablo Larraín’s Jackie benefits from audience investment in the subject matter and star names in the cast, but it’s fair to say that Natalie Portman’s Oscar-nominated lead performance is a big asset.

Manchester By the Sea, starring Casey Affleck and Michelle Williams, has benefited hugely from its status as a major awards contender, overcoming rather tough subject matter for audiences. Lonergan’s previous film Margaret had only token distribution in the UK, achieving just £81,000 at the box office. His directorial debut You Can Count on Me, starring Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo, grossed £423,000 in 2001.

With indie cinemas attempting to jam in showtimes for La La Land, Jackie, Manchester By the Sea and Lion – and many also giving a berth to the Met Opera’s Romeo et Juliette on Saturday and the Bolshoi Ballet’s Sleeping Beauty on Sunday – it’s been a tough time for any film not in the running for major awards. Martin Scorsese’s Silence, for example, found itself in just 77 cinemas at the weekend (down from 359 for the previous frame), resulting in a precipitous drop in box office: cumulative total is £2.17m. It has picked up some nominations and the odd win, notably from critics groups, but was shut out at the Baftas and Golden Globes.

The big hitter: Rogue One

Disney’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story ended the weekend with a cumulative total of £64.3m, which puts it in touching distance of the UK’s all-time box office Top 10 of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Skyfall, Spectre, Avatar, Toy Story 3, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, Titanic, Mamma Mia!, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and Jurassic World. Rogue One will overtake Jurassic World’s £64.5m this week, and should eventually sneak past Philosopher’s Stone (£66.1m). These figures are not adjusted for inflation.

Meanwhile, Disney is chugging away with its animation Moana, still in the top 10 in its eighth week of release. Recovering after a lacklustre debut of £2.21m, the film has now reached £18.2m. Competition from Sing saw a big drop (down 53%) for Moana at the weekend, but the film should keep ticking over through to the February half-term holiday.

The future

Despite the stellar performance of La La Land, box office overall is 11% down on the previous session, and also 5% down on the equivalent weekend from 2016, when The Revenant ruled the roost, ahead of new entrant Ride Along 2. Cinemas are expecting a box office bonanza with the official release of Sing on Friday – with the hefty previews added in, a £10m-plus five-day opening number is likely. The good news is likely to continue with the arrival of T2 Trainspotting, which releases into 582 cinemas. Venues are reporting healthy advance sales, with sellouts in Scotland. It’s rare for a sequel to succeed after such a long delay (more than 20 years in the case of T2 Trainspotting), but this one looks likely to buck the trend. Memories of the first film are still fond, as a healthy £82,670 for a one-day re-release of the 1996 original had proved.

Also released this weekend: Mel Gibson’s visceral second world war film Hacksaw Ridge starring Oscar-nominated Andrew Garfield, and courtroom drama Denial, starring Rachel Weisz as historian Deborah Lipstadt, who was sued for libel by Holocaust denier David Irving. Arthouse titles include Christine starring Rebecca Hall, The White King, and acclaimed documentary Cameraperson.

Top 10 films, 20-22 January

1. La La Land, £4,373,249 from 674 sites. Total: £14,907,148 (two weeks)

2. Split, £2,548,516 from 450 sites (new)

3. xXx: The Return of Xander Cage, £1,620,811 from 462 sites (new)

4. Lion, £1,265,282 from 369 sites (new)

5. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, £881,235 from 475 sites. Total: £64,341,177 (six weeks)

6. Jackie, £662,900 from 197 sites (new)

7. Manchester by the Sea, £521,694 from 306 sites. Total: £1,649,746 (two weeks)

8. Moana, £490,599 from 518 sites. Total: £18,181,840 (eight weeks)

9. Assassin’s Creed, £342,277 from 413 sites. Total: £7,662,432 (three weeks)

10. Passengers, £265,186 from 322 sites. Total: £12,432,868 (five weeks)

Other openers

Met Opera: Romeo et Juliette, £228,384 from 176 sites

Bolshoi Ballet: Sleeping Beauty, £218,668 from 217 sites

Konwój, £27,963 from 25 sites

GoodFellas, £27,226 from 34 sites (rerelease)

Kirik Party, £9,857 from 12 sites

Olanlar Oldu, £3,497 from three sites

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