Honors were even atop the U.K. and Ireland box office as Universal’s “Kung Fu Panda 4” and Warner Bros.’ “Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire” battled for top spot during the Easter holiday weekend.
While “Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire” won the three-day weekend, “Kung Fu Panda 4” had the higher gross including previews. According to numbers provided by Comscore, “Kung Fu Panda 4” collected £5 million ($6.3) million, while “Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire” took in £4.1 million ($5.2 million).
In third place, in its second weekend, Sony’s “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” collected £2.1 million for a total of £8.2 million. In its fifth weekend, in fourth place, Warner Bros.’ “Dune: Part II” grossed £1.6 million to take its total to £34 million.
Debuting at fifth place was Indian filmmaker Blessy’s acclaimed desert saga “Aadujeevitham” (“The Goat Life”), distributed by DG Tech, with £480,977.
There were two more debuts in the top 10. Studiocanal’s drama thriller “Mother’s Instinct,” starring Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain, earned £406,489 in sixth place and Bakrania Media’s Bollywood caper “Crew,” headlined by Tabu, Kareena Kapoor and Kriti Sanon £209,196 in eighth.
The upcoming weekend sees three wide releases across more than 300 locations each. Universal’s “Monkey Man,” Dev Patel’s feature directorial debut, follows a young man (Patel) who ekes out a meager living in an underground fight club where, night after night, wearing a gorilla mask, he’s beaten bloody by more popular fighters for cash. After years of suppressed rage, he discovers a way to infiltrate the enclave of the city’s sinister elite. As his childhood trauma boils over, his mysteriously scarred hands unleash an explosive campaign of retribution to settle the score with the men who took everything from him.
In Disney’s “The First Omen,” a woman starts to question her own faith when she uncovers a terrifying conspiracy to bring about the birth of evil incarnate in Rome. And in Entertainment Film Distributors’ Dark Ages Britain-set “Seize Them!,” starring Aimee Lou Wood, Nicola Coughlan and Lolly Adefope, Nick Frost, Jessica Hynes and Paul Kaye, an arrogant queen (Wood) becomes a fugitive in her own land after being toppled from her throne by a charismatic revolutionary.
Parkland Film Capital is opening Dinard-winning comedy “The Trouble With Jessica”; Sony blockbuster Chinese comedy-drama “YOLO”; Modern films Hamaguchi Ryusuke’s Venice winner “Evil Does Not Exist”; and Altitude Matteo Garrone’s Oscar nominated “Io Capitano.”
Park Circus is opening the 70th Anniversary, 4K restoration of Elia Kazan’s masterpiece “On The Waterfront,” starring Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger and Eva Marie Saint.
