UK-Ireland box office for first six months of 2024 down 7% on previous year

UK-Ireland box office takings for 2024 were down 7% in the first six months of the year compared to the same period in 2023.

A strong Q1 from January to March saw takings up 9%, but that fell back in Q2 from April to June, when takings dropped 21%, according to figures supplied by Comscore. 

The total UK-Ireland box office for the first six months of 2024 was £451.6m, compared to £486.6m in 2023.

Only three of the 10 highest-grossing titles in the first half of the year were released in Q2 – Disney’s Pixar animation Inside Out 2 (£34.8m in this time), action title Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes (£15.6m) and Amy Winehouse biopic Back To Black (£12.3m), released by Studiocanal.

All figures provided by Comscore

UK, international titles

Among independent UK titles, Q2 failed to match Q1, when Warner Bros’ One Life, Studiocanal’s Wicked Little Letters and Disney/Searchlight’s All Of Us Strangers all grossed more than £5m. Back To Black topped the UK chart with £2.7m from April 12-14, and ended with a decent £12.2m for Studiocanal; while Dev Patel’s Monkey Man made £2.5m total for Universal after opening at the start of April. Love Lies Bleeding, a Film4-backed UK-US co-production, grossed almost £1m across its run through Lionsgate UK.

Irish drama That They May Face The Rising Sun grossed a strong £630,000, released by Conic in the UK and Break Out Pictures in Ireland. MetFilm’s nature documentary Wilding had grossed £300,000 by the end of June, with the film still in cinemas; while Entertainment Film Distributors’ Seize Them! took £250,000 from the start of April.

Alice Rohrwacher’s La Chimera starring Josh O’Connor was the standout non-English language release in Q2. Released by Curzon, the film opened to £71,053 on May 10-12, and was still in cinemas by the end of June with over £850,000 – a success story in a slow quarter for foreign films. Other notable non-English language releases  from April to June included Ilker Catak’s The Teachers’ Lounge, which topped £100,000, also for Curzon.

Southeast Asian cinema continues its expansion at the UK-Ireland box office, with Dreamz Entertainment (and Akshaya Traders in Ireland) giving Kalki 2898 AD the widest opening of any Indian film in 450 cinemas. The action-adventure title had £888,603 by the end of June, and was up to £1.3m by last weekend.

Summer hopes

The US actors’ strike in 2023 has raised fears of a tough summer season for cinemas, with no blockbusters tracking near the heights of Barbie (£95.5m) or Oppenheimer (£58.7m) from last year.

However there are signs of hope, with total box office for June 2024 up 7% compared to June 2023 (£71.4m vs. £66.6m).

Disney’s Inside Out 2 has also become the highest-grossing release of the year, dropping just 15% on its fourth weekend and crossing the £40m mark.

Warner Bros’ Dune: Part II brought in the most money across the first six months with £39.6m, followed by Inside Out 2, then two Universal animations: Kung Fu Panda 4 (£21.9m) and Migration (£21.3m). Paramount’s music biopic Bob Marley: One Love rounded out the top five with £17.1m

Despicable Me 4, another Illumination animation released by Universal, offers the best hope of strong box office in the next quarter. The previous three films in the series took £47.9m, £47.5m and £20.2m, while Minions (£47.8m) and Minions: The Rise of Gru (£47m) also flourished from the same franchise.

Other potential highlights include Warner Bros’ Twisters, starring Daisy Edgar-Jones and Glen Powell, the latter of whom was in Anyone But You (£11.3m) earlier this year. Twisters releases on Wednesday, July 17, eight days before Disney’s superhero title Deadpool & Wolverine starring Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman.

Big titles in the later months of the year include Warner Bros’ Joker: Folie A Deux on October 4, Studiocanal’s Paddington In Peru on November 8 and Paramount’s Gladiator 2 on November 22.

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