The winner

Whether you look at the three-day weekend takings for Thor: The Dark World or its previews-boosted five-day tally,it's the same good news for cinema-owners and Disney-owned Marvel: the film has posted the biggest opening at UK cinemas since the arrival of Despicable Me 2 in late June. With £5.57m for the three days, and £8.67m over the five, the superhero flick has also delivered a big improvement on the original Thor film, which debuted with £3.11m (£5.45m including previews) in April 2011.

The incredible success of 2012's The Avengers created a rising tide that has lifted all of the constituent parts in this particular universe. Earlier this summer, Iron Man 3 opened significantly bigger than any previous Iron Man film – 79% up on Iron Man 2. And now The Dark World has debuted 59% bigger than Thor did. Disney and Marvel will be hoping that Captain America: The Winter Soldier can perform a similar feat when it arrives next May – so far, the character has proved commercially the puniest Avenger, with £9.48m UK lifetime, unless you count 2003's The Hulk (£8.43m) or 2008's The Incredible Hulk (£8.28m).

The original Thor reached a lifetime total of £14.04m in the UK. Based on the opening numbers, the sequel could reach £22m, although this assumes a similar trajectory and decay rate to Thor, buoyed by similarly positive audience reactions. Sequels usually see relatively strong opening numbers followed by hefty drops, so Thor 2 might not stay the course. Gravity offers sturdy competition later this week.

Half-term report

In the battle for the October half-term family audience, rival animations Turbo and Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 delivered a score draw. Both films posted exceptionally strong holds at the weekend, as you might expect for the last three days of a school holiday. Cloudy, falling 2% from the previous frame, achieved the bigger weekend total (£2.07m) and added a hefty £5.28m over the whole seven days. Turbo, rising 2%, managed £1.35m at the weekend, and added £3.51m for the seven days. However the turbo-powered snail has the bigger cumulative total (£9.71m v £8.93m) by virtue of having been released a week earlier.

Now that kids are back at school, both these animated titles should see hefty drops this coming weekend, and will likely also experience negligible midweek business. Both their backers have reasons to be cheerful. The original Cloudy maxed out at £6.5m in the UK, so Sony will be pleased that the sequel has already done significantly better. Turbo, which was released in July in the US, sputtered to a disappointing $83m over there. The equivalent UK result would be £8.3m, so DreamWorks Animation and its distribution partner 20th Century Fox will both be pleased that it's already exceeded that target.

Ender's Game, targeting a mix of older kids as well as adult sci-fi fans, fell a troubling 60% from the previous weekend, and added £1.31m over the seven days. Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa fell just 30%, and added £2.12m over the seven days, for a £4.06m total. Its production budget is estimated at $15m, as against $110m for Ender's Game, and is already looking wildly profitable. Of course, film is a global business, and big-budget family-friendly sci-fi may prove an easier sell in Asian and other territories than provocative Johnny Knoxville pranks.

The upscale winner

Judi Dench's status as a powerful film brand received further confirmation at the weekend, with a £1.51m opening for Philomena. Comparable films, similarly targeting a middle-class, middle-aged audience, are The Queen (debut of £856,000), The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (£2.22m) and Quartet (£1.31m plus £984,000 in previews). All those titles went on to achieve huge multiples of their opening weekends, with The Queen, for example, reaching a total of £9.4m, and Marigold Hotel making it to £20.4m. This audience is notorious for preferring midweek to Friday night, for robust matinee figures and for taking its time to see films at the cinema. For all these reasons, it's reasonable to assume Philomena has a long, rich road ahead of it.

Top site for Philomena at the weekend was the Everyman Belsize Park in London NW3, followed by London's Curzon Chelsea, then the Arts Picturehouse in Cambridge. The top multiplex site was the Vue Westfield in west London. While the above-mentioned older-skewing upscale titles all under-performed in the Republic of Ireland (NB, Irish takings are included in all UK box-office numbers quoted here and elsewhere), this is not the case with Philomena, given the locally relevant storyline. While Quartet earned 3% of its UK box-office total in Ireland and The King's Speech 5%, so far Philomena has achieved 10% of its takings in the Republic.

In 2013, Steve Coogan has experienced very mixed results at the UK box-office, beginning in April with The Look of Love, continuing in August with Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa, and now Philomena. It turned out that audiences weren't too keen on seeing Coogan cavorting as unloveable, unknowable pornographer Paul Raymond, and The Look of Love limped to a poor £469,000 here. Alpha Papa proved predictably much more popular, achieving a solid £6.12m. Philomena, written by Coogan with Jeff Pope, is highly likely to exceed that total.

The Bollywood hit

With the second-highest screen average in the top 10 (after Thor: The Dark World), Krrish 3 has delivered the second-biggest opening for a Bollywood film so far this year, behind only August's Chennai Express. The sci-fi film's £409,000 debut compares with an opening salvo of £210,000 for Krrish in 2006. That film was the second in a series that began with 2003's Koi… Mil Gaya (debut of £177,000). All three films star Hrithik Roshan, who is third-generation Bollywood royalty, and first appeared in one of his grandfather J Om Prakash's productions at the age of six.

The future

With box-office 38% up on the previous weekend, the arrival of Thor 2 has clearly delivered a big boost to UK cinemas. However, a shortfall of 22% on the equivalent frame from 2012 makes for less encouraging reading. A year ago, Skyfall was still riding high, and cinemas were always going to struggle to match those stellar returns. Box-office has now trailed behind 2012 levels for six weekends in a row, and an incredibly strong fourth quarter last year presents a tough target for 2013 to match. This coming weekend it's all about Gravity, a film that seemingly no major film – either mainstream or arthouse – wanted to go up against. Various titles originally slated for November 15 were shoved by nervous distributors into safer harbours, once it became apparent just how commercially formidable Alfonso Cuaron's sci-fi film is likely to be. Gravity has already grossed a stunning $427m worldwide, and based on US numbers is chasing a total of £20m here.

Top 10 films

1. Thor: The Dark World, £8,668,172 from 522 sites (New)

2. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2, £2,074,667 from 511 sites. Total: £8,933,787

3. Captain Phillips, £1,622,925 from 497 sites. Total: £11,418,489

4. Philomena, £1,509,726 from 506 sites (New)

5. Turbo, £1,351,821 from 529 sites. Total: £9,711,401

6. Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa, £975,121 from 380 sites. Total: £4,058,130

7. Ender's Game, £469,112 from 420 sites. Total: £2,463,575

8. Krrish 3, £408,624 from 95 sites (new)

9. One Chance, £339,722 from 380 sites. Total: £1,866,395

10. Escape Plan, £185,957 from 203 sites. Total: £2,504,262

Other openers

Arrambam, £135,213 (inc. £34,830 previews) from 35 sites

The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia, £102,955 from 186 sites

A Nightmare on Elm Street, £53,552 from 79 sites (Halloween only, rerelease)

All In All Azhagu Raja, £21,582 from 8 sites

Gloria, £19,590 from 15 sites

Drinking Buddies, £18,379 from 66 sites

Short Term 12, £12,294 from 27 sites

Benim Dunyam (My World), £10,279 from 2 sites

Nosferatu the Vampyre, £9,978 (inc. £2,636 previews) from 5 sites (rerelease)

The Nun, £2,657 from 6 sites

Child's Pose, £1,874 from 2 sites

Cutie and the Boxer, £1,272 from 3 sites

Milius, £189 from 1 site

Thanks to Rentrak