Awards contenders are coming thick and fast at the box office, but tough cookie Liam Neeson triumphs in the shootout for top chart honours

The winner



January is the month when awards contenders jostle for attention at cinemas, but none of the Oscar-bait films posed much threat to grizzled action star Liam Neeson. Taken 3 wiped the floor with the competition, grossing £6.71m, including previews of £926,000. Audiences paid no attention to critics – the ones tracked by MetaCritic awarded the film a poor 26/100 rating – rallying to a franchise that has not strayed far from its original winning formula.

Taken 2 – which earned a warmer 45/100 score at MetaCritic – debuted in October 2012 with a slightly stronger £7.38m, including £1.19m in previews. Since the Taken concept relies on calamities befalling the family of retired CIA operative Bryan Mills, it’s not an obvious premise to yield sequels, and Neeson assures us that no more are planned. In the current film, Mills goes on the run after being framed for the murder of a family member.

Taken 3 review – a very exhausted set of skills Read more

Taken 3 faced no competition for the action audience. From Friday, Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper, starring Bradley Cooper, should pull adult males, although it’s an altogether more serious affair, based on the memoir of an Iraq war combatant.

The head-to-head



Two films – both straddling the multiplex-specialised divide – fought for second place, ending up less than £15,000 apart for the weekend. The Theory of Everything had the best of the early running on Friday, but Into the Woods surged on Saturday and Sunday, finally overtaking the Stephen Hawking film by a whisker. Woods ended on £2.48m, and Theory on £2.46m. Of course, it’s worth remembering that this was the second session of play for Theory – the film had already grossed £5.48m going into the weekend.

From Disney’s perspective, the 132% rise in Into the Woods’ box office from Friday to Saturday confirms that the Stephen Sondheim musical is appealing to families. But the film is working at all showtimes, indicating that it also has broad adult appeal, with older audiences presumably attracted more by the Sondheim angle, and others pulled in by star cast, Disney brand and appropriation of famous fairytales. Best site was Empire Leicester Square (perhaps suggesting a theatreland skew) ahead of Vue Westfield in Shepherds Bush, so often the top site for a newly released film. According to Disney, the top 20 sites across the UK and Ireland include Plymouth, Crawley, Nottingham, Sheffield and Dublin. “The film refuses, rather wonderfully, to be pigeon-holed,” said Disney’s UK and Ireland sales director Tom Batchelor.

The obvious comparative title for Into the Woods is Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd, which began in January 2008 with a more robust £3.18m, plus £1.35m in previews. Sweeney Todd benefited from being the more famous brand, at least in the UK. In the US, Into the Woods has left Sweeney Todd for dust, with $105m so far, as opposed to $53m lifetime for the demon barber of Fleet Street.

In third place, The Theory of Everything fell a slim 16%, presumably buoyed by warm word-of-mouth and the 10 Bafta nominations, announced on Friday morning. Eddie Redmayne’s Golden Globe win will help. After 11 days, the film has clocked up a nifty £7.94m, and should play right up to the Oscars ceremony on 22 February and beyond.

The wider awards race



While awards nominations are not a key part of Into the Woods’ marketing plan, they are playing a bigger role for two titles that battled in the middle of the table. Birdman, with 10 Bafta nominations, managed a decent hold, down 28%, although it’s worth noting that its cinema count moved up from 259 to 302. The film grossed £826,000 for the weekend, for an 11-day total of £2.99m. Foxcatcher, debuting at 333 venues, achieved £877,000. Foxcatcher was not so beloved by Bafta – just supporting actor nominations for Steve Carell and Mark Ruffalo – but remains very much part of the awards conversation.

Foxcatcher distributor eOne afforded the film a much more ambitious release than any previous Bennett Miller title. The result is that Foxcatcher has already outgrossed the lifetime of Moneyball (£856,000) and eOne hopes to overtake Capote (£1.60m) by the end of this week. After nine weeks of play in the US, Foxcatcher has grossed only $8.75m. By rule of thumb, the equivalent UK result would be £875,000 – what Foxcatcher has managed in just three days. The challenge for Foxcatcher remains the tough competitive environment, which will get even fiercer. (See “The future”, below.)

Thanks to nine Bafta nominations, The Imitation Game fell a slim 10% in its ninth frame, adding a handy £203,000 to its tally. Conversely, or perversely, the disappointing nominations for Mr Turner – or at least the incredulous media reporting thereof – may be behind the film’s 7% rise at the weekend. The Imitation Game now stands at £14.76m and Mr Turner at £6.58m.



The 2014 chart champs



Despite big drops from the previous frame, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies and Paddington both added another £1m each at the weekend. Five Armies now stands at £39.20m, and is well on course to be the only 2014 release to crack £40m at the box office. Paddington, with £32.83m so far, has now overtaken Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (£32.72m) to become the fourth biggest hit of the year, behind Five Armies, The Lego Movie and The Inbetweeners 2.

The future



Overall, the market was a slim 10% down on the previous frame, but a very healthy 33% up on the equivalent session from 2014, when 12 Years a Slave debuted at the top of the chart. The weekend was the fifth highest-grossing of the past year. Programmers at independent cinemas, already struggling to accommodate a wealth of titles, now face the mother of all headaches with the arrival of Whiplash, American Sniper, Wild and Testament of Youth. A simple lack of screen space may mean that a couple of those pictures will find no room at your local arthouse, so expect upscale multiplexes to pick up the slack. Whiplash, which picked up five Bafta nominations (plus Miles Teller in the rising star category) and predictably won the supporting actor Golden Globe for JK Simmons, should play in plexes and independent cinemas. The film has earned only $6.2m in the US so far, so there is plenty of scope for the UK to produce a better equivalent result for distributor Sony.

Top 10 films 9-11 January

1. Taken 3, £6,714,530 from 483 sites (new)

2. Into the Woods, £2,476,409 from 474 sites (new)

3. The Theory of Everything, £2,462,191 from 548 sites. Total: £7,942,551

4. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, £1,276,109 from 473 sites. Total: £39,201,752

5. Paddington, £1,268,785 from 569 sites. Total: £32,834,123

6. Foxcatcher, £877,408 from 333 sites (new)

7. The Woman in Black: Angel of Death, £837,653 from 431 sites. Total: £3,972,647

8. Birdman, £826,316 from 302 sites. Total: £2,992,266

9. Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb, £648,885 from 476 sites. Total: £10,766,021

10. Annie, £627,910 from 402 sites. Total: £6,372,590

Other openers

Tevar, £71,528 from 44 sites

National Gallery, £20,817 from 57 sites

The Last of the Unjust, £479 from 1 site

• Thanks to Rentrak