Author: SD

Disney’s Mufasa: The Lion King roars into 663 cinemas in an otherwise quiet weekend for new releases at the UK and Ireland box office.  The animated sequel will be looking to at least match the record-breaking success of its predecessor, 2019’s The Lion King. That film, a remake of the 1994 original, opened on £16.7m in one of the biggest debut weekends for either an animation or a PG-rated title. It ended on £76m and is the 13th highest-grossing film of all time in the UK and Ireland. Mufasa is a prequel that tells the origin story of the eponymous lion.…

RankFilm (distributor)Three-day gross (Dec 13-15)Total gross to dateWeek  1. Moana 2 (Disney) £3.6m £26.5m 3  2. Wicked (Universal) £3.5m £43.6m 4  3. Gladiator II (Paramount) £918,000 £28.5m 5  4. Paddington In Peru (Studiocanal) £821,166 £30.2m 6  5. Kraven The Hunter (Sony) £686,806 £686,806 1 GBP to USD conversion rate: 1.26 Kraven The Hunter had the lowest debut of any Sony-produced Marvel title at the UK and Ireland box office this weekend, while holdovers Moana 2, Wicked and Gladiator II stayed locked in at the top. Disney’s Moana 2 clung on to the…

Eugene Jarecki has withdrawn his anticipated Julian Assange documentary The Six Billion Dollar Man from the upcoming Sundance Film Festival due to “unexpected developments”. In a statement issued on Friday morning (December 20), Jarecki said, “The truth is, significant recent and unexpected developments have emerged at the heart of the story which, if not incorporated in the version for Sundance, would not represent a finished film. Sundance has shaped my career and been a cornerstone of my journey – only something of this magnitude could make me withdraw.” The film had ben scheduled to premiere as a Special Screening. Sundance…

France was one of the first countries to require streamers to invest in the local film and TV production sector. Three years on, its impact is being felt. A comprehensive study from the CNC and French audiovisual regulatory authority Arcom published in late November revealed the impact of the introduction of the European Union’s Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD) in France on the country’s film and TV sector. The AVMSD requires the US streamers to invest at least 20% of their annual turnover in local film and TV. According to the report, it has given the French industry a nearly…

Korean drama Firefighters rose to the top of the local box office this weekend, despite a swell of political controversy linked to the director’s brother. The film opened on December 4 and ranked second after its first weekend but has climbed to the top on its second outing, taking $4.38m from just over 657,000 admissions and a 41.9% market share from Friday to Sunday (December 13-15). The 17% uptick in sales from its opening weekend has brought its cume to $11.7m, according to Kobis, the Korean Film Council’s box office tracking service. Awareness of the film has risen as the…

Thirty-six Australian features with theatrical distribution in place went into production in Australia in the 12 months to June 30 2024, according to Screen Australia’s annual drama report. They included Danny and Michael Philippou’s Talk To Me horror sequel Bring Her Back for Causeway Films, Sean Byrne’s Dangerous Animals for Brouhaha Entertainment and Sophie Hyde’s Jimpa for Closer Filns.  Total budgets reached A$214 million, a 50% fall on the five-year average as few had significant budgets and 44% were budgeted between A$1 million and A$5 million. International investment accounted for just 27% of the slate, the lowest contribution for a decade, while tax breaks or discretionary direct…

Worldwide box office November 29-December 1 RankFilm (distributor)3-day (world)Cume (world)3-day (int’l) Cume (int’l)Territories  1. Moana 2 (Disney)  $300.8m  $386.3m  $165.3m  $165.3m  51  2. Wicked (Universal)  $109m  $359.3m  $29m  $96.9m  62  3.  Gladiator II (Paramount)  $57.9m  $320m  $27.2m  $208.8m  65  4.  Red One (Warner Bros)  $17.9m  $148.7m  $5m  $72.6m  76  5.  Her Story (various)  $17.5m  $38.8m  $17.5m  $38.8m  6  6.  Venom: The Last Dance (Sony)  $6m  $468.2m  $3.8m  $330.3m  67  7.  Heretic (various)  $3.3m  $38.7m  $2.4m  $11.9m  28  8.  The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (various)  $3.3m  $32.1m  $10,000  $145,000  3 …

Tunisian drama Red Path, directed by Lotfi Achour, scooped the Golden Yusr for best film and the prize for best director at the 4th Red Sea International Film Festival on Thursday (December 12). The main award was presented by jury head and Oscar-winning US filmmaker Spike Lee at a ceremony in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Scroll down for full list of winners On stage, Lee declared that it was also Achour’s birthday, meaning the best film and director awards are quite the present, coming with cash prizes of $100,000 and $30,000 respectively. The film, which premiered at Locarno, is inspired by…

Sundance Film Festival’s 2025 line-up comprises 87 features, nearly half of which are directed by women, and is crammed with new work by returning stars and indie stalwarts including Olivia Colman, Benedict Cumberbatch, Jennifer Lopez, Isabelle Huppert, Mark Ruffalo, and Dev Patel. Among anticipated highlights are the feature directorial debut of UK playwright and incoming Young Vic artistic director Nadia Fall with her Bankside Films sales title Brides in World Cinema Dramatic Competition, about teenage friends who plan to travel to Syria.  Scroll down for the full line-up Peter Hujar’s Day, a drama in Premieres about the New York portrait photographer starring…

Musical Wicked is hoping to bewitch audiences this weekend, coming out in 698 sites for Universal. The first of a two-part adaptation of the stage musical stars Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jonathan Bailey, Michelle Yeoh and Jeff Goldblum, with Jon M Chu directing. Elphaba (Erivo), a misunderstood young woman because of her green skin, and Glinda (Grande), a more conventional and popular girl, become friends at Shiz University in the Land of Oz. Their friendship is taken in a new direction after they cross paths with the Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Wicked is the third in a trio of blockbuster…