This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Top new entry: Moana

With three weeks to go, Disney released its big family film for Christmas: Polynesia-set animation Moana. The seafaring adventure failed to dislodge Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, now in its third week. An opening gross of £2.21m (including previews of £33,000) seems rather modest for a Disney animation – Zootropolis kicked off in March with £5.31m, including £1.73m in previews.

In fairness, family films released in the run-up to Christmas tend to start rather gently, picking up steam when schools break up. That said, Disney/Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur began with £2.93m in the last weekend of November 2015 – 33% ahead of the Moana opening. The Good Dinosaur ended up with a lifetime tally of £15.15m, making it the lowest-grossing Pixar movie to date. Disney must be disappointed to have opened Moana even lower.

A factor here is likely to be the continuing strong performance of Fantastic Beasts, which added £4.49m in its third weekend, taking the 17-day tally to £37.9m. The JK Rowling-scripted blockbuster has overtaken the lifetime totals of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (£36.6m) and Captain America: Civil War (£36.9m), thus becoming the fifth biggest hit of 2016 so far, behind Bridget Jones’s Baby (£47.8m), The Jungle Book (£46.2m), Finding Dory (£42.8m) and Deadpool (£38.1m).

The runner-up: Sully

Warners UK executives may have wondered whether the story of US Airways pilot Chesley Sullenberger – who landed a plane on the Hudson River in 2009 after both his engines were disabled by a flock of geese – would resonate with UK cinemagoers. But selling points included director Clint Eastwood and star Tom Hanks, and Sully has opened solidly with £1.79m including £18,000 previews.

In the US, the film began in September with $35m, on its way to a total of $125m. An equivalent opening in the UK would be £3.5m, so Sully is not yet matching its US success.

The Polish surprise: Pitbull: Tough Women

Most UK cinemagoers will never have heard of Polish action film Pitbull: Tough Women, which has crashed into the UK chart in fifth place. Targeted at the UK’s sizeable Polish population, the film played in 104 Odeon cinemas, grossing a stunning £456,000.

Distributor Phoenix opened franchise predecessor Pitbull: Public Order in April, debuting with £146,000, on its way to a final £544,000. If Tough Women follows a similar trajectory, it would end up with £1.7m, making it the year’s biggest foreign language European film, ahead of Pedro Almodóvar’s Julieta (£1.33m).

The year’s biggest Hindi-language hits are Ae Dil Hai Mushkil (£1.47m) and Sultan (£1.79m), so Tough Women also has a chance of overtaking those, thus becoming the biggest foreign language film of 2016 at UK and Ireland cinemas.

Both these Pitbull films are rated 18, Public Order for “strong violence, sex and sexual violence”, and Tough Women for “very strong language, strong bloody violence and injury detail”. Both are directed by Patryk Vega, as was the 2005 original Pitbull movie (never released in UK cinemas) and the spinoff TV series of the same name.

The also-rans: The Edge of Seventeen and Bleed for This

Two wide releases – teen comedy The Edge of Seventeen and boxing drama Bleed for This – made little impact at the box office, landing in ninth and 10th place. In fact, it was only thanks to £60,000 in previews that Edge of Seventeen (£273,000) made the Top 10 at all.

Bleed for This stars Miles Teller (Whiplash) as Italian American boxer Vinny Pazienza, who made what is regarded as one of the greatest comebacks in sports history when he re-entered the ring 13 months after breaking his neck in a car crash. Reviews were modestly encouraging, but, following on from Creed earlier this year and Southpaw in 2015, audiences might not have been ready for another boxing picture.

As for The Edge of Seventeen, reviews were strong, but a 15 certificate meant it had to play to older teenagers and adults, pushing it closer to edgy fare such as The Diary of a Teenage Girl than, say, Mean Girls (£5.5m).

The future

Thanks in part to that rather soft start for Moana, the market overall is 21% down on the previous session. However, it’s also 20% up on the equivalent weekend from 2015, when box office underperformers Christmas with the Coopers and Victor Frankenstein were the top new releases. Cinemas must now get through one more weekend before the arrival of Star Wars: Rogue One on 15 December. Wednesday welcomes festive comedy Office Christmas Party, starring Jason Bateman, TJ Miller and Jennifer Aniston. It’s followed on Friday by Oliver Stone’s Snowden, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Shailene Woodley, and by Nate Parker’s Sundance sensation Birth of a Nation, starring Parker and Armie Hammer. Alternatives include Russell Tovey as a Premier League footballer struggling with his sexuality in stage-play adaptation The Pass; documentary crowd pleaser Life, Animated; and indie genre flick I Am Not a Serial Killer, starring Max Records (the kid in Where the Wild Things Are) and Christopher Lloyd.

Top 10 films, 2-4 December

1. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, £4,494,727 from 649 sites. Total: £37,886,538

2. Moana, £2,214,898 from 556 sites (new)

3. Sully: Miracle on the Hudson, £1,786,844 from 560 sites (new)

4. Allied, £672,146 from 502 sites. Total: £2,870,636

5. Pitbull: Tough Women, 456,475 from 104 sites (new)

6. Arrival, £398,364 from 367 sites. Total: £8,128,726

7. Trolls, £338,057 from 516 sites. Total: £22,242,400

8. Bad Santa 2, £275,043 from 397 sites. Total: £1,421,671

9. The Edge of Seventeen, £273,139 from 313 sites (new)

10. Bleed for This, £250,975 from 238 sites (new)

Other openers

Kahaani 2, £58,115 from 43 sites

Blue Velvet, £16,880 from 11 sites

Chi-Raq, £16,675 from 22 sites

The Unknown Girl, £13,433 from 9 sites

Crash and Burn, £9,459 from seven sites

Saithan, £7,770 from 18 sites

Aanandam, £3,074 from 13 sites

Eat That Question, £1,468 from four sites

London Di Heer, £783 from four sites

Molly Moon and the Incredible Book of Hypnotism, £612 from nine sites

The Dreamed Ones, £257 from one site

E-League: Counter-Strike: Go Offensive, £92 from one site

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