This week in The Callow Way, Neil Calloway looks at the similarities and differences at the British and American box offices…
With Britain currently experiencing a heatwave, it’s probably not the best time to visit the cinema, but it is a great time to compare the UK and US box office figures for 2015 so far.
The first thing to note is that the box office figures are for the UK, Ireland and Malta, for reasons unknown to me but are surely a bizarre mix of history and film distribution politics. The second thing worth noting is how similar it is to the US box office (which is actually the box office for the US and Canada). Of the top ten for both territories, eight films appear in both lists. The top three for both countries are exactly the same films, in the same order. Number one is Jurassic World, followed by Age of Ultron, with the third place taken up by Furious 7. It’s an impressive feat for Jurassic World, given that it has been out for less than a month at the time of writing.
Mad Max: Fury Road appears at number ten on both lists, making $27 million in the UK and just shy of $150 million at the US box office (yes, I know it technically didn’t make any dollars in the UK, but for the sake of convenience I’m using US dollars for both lists).
Also appearing in the top ten for both the US and the UK are Home, Fifty Shades of Grey, Cinderella and Pitch Perfect 2. Fifty Shades is at four in the UK chart, and only at eight in the US. Proof, if it were needed, that Brits are keener for kinky adaptations than our American cousins, who have made Pixar’s Inside Out (yet to be released in the UK) the fourth most watched film so far this year. The other film that appears on the US list that doesn’t appear in the UK top ten is The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, at nine so far for the year in the US, and making over $160 million, but only at twenty in the UK. In the place of SpongeBob and Inside Out, at six and seven respectively in the UK chart are The Theory of Everything and Big Hero 6. Released last year in the US, Big Hero 6 appeared at number ten in the end of year chart for 2014, and The Theory of Everything appeared at 85, (though this is significantly lower that its UK placing, it earned slightly more in the US – $35 million against $31 million in the UK). The Theory of Everything is the only film in the UK top ten that is wholly British – produced by Working Title, directed by a Brit and telling a British story. Given that it’s at seven in the chart, it’s possible that by the end of 2015 there is not a single British film in the top ten most seen films at UK cinemas. (Paddington and The Inbetweeners 2 both fit that category in 2014).
There are some odd quirks if you go further down the charts. Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 is at number twenty in the US, earning over $70 million so far this year, whereas it just scrapes into the top fifty at forty-nine in the UK, making just over $2 million. In fact, it is beaten by a thirty year old film that hasn’t got a proper release; the £75 tickets for the Secret Cinema screening of The Empire Strikes Back means it is at number forty-eight in the UK charts, earning $2.2 million. 2015 is obviously the year for re-releases of old Harrison Ford starring science fiction films; Blade Runner is at number 81 in the UK, its latest re-issue making almost $400,000. There’s a rumour that Ford will appear in another science fiction film before the year is out; if it’s a good film and they get the marketing right, it just might even do better than both The Empire Strikes Back and Blade Runner have this year combined.
The UK box office is heavily dependent on US made films, or US made finance for British films, just as it might be argued that the US industry is heavily dependent on UK acting talent and studio space. The special relationship may not exist diplomatically, but it certainly does in the film industry.
Neil Calloway is a pub quiz extraordinaire and Top Gun obsessive. Check back here every Sunday for future instalments.
https://youtu.be/_0aWTKimZj4?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng
Originally published July 5, 2015. Updated April 14, 2018.
