The winner: Despicable Me 3

With a sturdy debut of £11.15m, Despicable Me 3 had no problem knocking Transformers: The Last Knight off the top spot at the UK box office chart. It scored the third biggest opening of the year, behind Beauty and the Beast (£19.7m) and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 (£13.09m), and is the biggest animation debut of the year so far, ahead of Sing (£6.29m plus £4.2m in previews) and The Lego Batman Movie (£5.46m plus £2.45m in previews). It is also bigger than last year’s top animated openings for Finding Dory (£8.12m) and The Secret Life of Pets (£9.58m). The Jungle Book, which was significantly animated, began last year with £9.9m.

The Despicable Me 3 figure is slightly down on the debut salvo of Minions, which began in June 2015 with £11.59m, setting a record opening for an animation, if previews are excluded from consideration for competitor releases. Despicable Me 2 kicked off with £9.95m in June 2013, with previews taking that total to £14.82m. The original Despicable Me, which opened for the October half-term holiday in 2010, was much more modest, beginning with £3.66m, including £205,000 in previews. It’s notable that, beginning with Despicable Me 2, all films in this franchise (including Minions) have landed the same last-Friday-in-June release date in the UK – clearly a winner for distributor Universal.

The runner-up: Baby Driver

With a debut of £2.39m and £3.61m including Wednesday/Thursday previews, Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver has got off to a speedy start. Relevant comparisons are tricky, because Wright’s last film was The World’s End, which benefited from being the last part of his “Cornetto” trilogy (following Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz), featuring regular collaborators Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. In any case, Baby Driver has opened a little ahead of The World’s End, which kicked off with £2.12m in July 2013.

Wright’s US-set Scott Pilgrim vs the World is a more apt comparison for Baby Driver. That film began in August 2010 with £1.6m including £532,000 in previews. Baby Driver has so far achieved a high IMDb user rating of 8.4/10 and a MetaCritic score of 86/100, suggesting it could enjoy some decent box office longevity.

The niche hit: All Eyez on Me

Released into a tight 270 cinemas (compared with 608 for Despicable Me 3 and 543 for Baby Driver), Tupac Shakur biopic All Eyez on Me has achieved a creditable site average of £3,380 from an opening gross of £913,000. While that’s below the debut frame of 2015’s NWA biopic Straight Outta Compton (£2.5m from 429 cinemas), distributor Lionsgate will be encouraged. The film’s director Benny Boom is best known for directing music videos (50 Cent, Nelly, Nicki Minaj), while star Demetrius Shipp Jr was unknown to audiences, so it was really only All Eyez on Me’s subject and soundtrack that provided strong marketable elements.

The flop: The House

Will Ferrell is hit and miss at the UK box office. His last lead role was in Daddy’s Home, which proved a big commercial winner, but his new comedy The House is very much in the miss category, with a debut of £488,000 from 407 cinemas. Ferrell stars as a man who convinces his friends to start an illegal casino in his basement after he and his wife (Amy Poehler) spend their daughter’s college fund.

The wipeout: American Hero

The latest film to suffer the ignominy of being buried in one cinema far from the UK’s capital is American Hero, the latest by Football Factory director Nick Love. Stephen Dorff stars as a reluctant superhero in this action-comedy-drama, which premiered at the Busan film festival in South Korea in October 2015, and enjoyed a limited US release in December that year. American Hero played the Edinburgh film festival last June.

Now it opens only at the Belfast Odyssey cinema, grossing the alarming sum of £20, according to the official data. This is the worst result for a film since Shia LaBeouf vehicle Man Down, which took £7 on its opening in March this year.

The market

Thanks to the arrival of Despicable Me 3 and Baby Driver, overall takings are up 98% on the previous frame and 28% up on the equivalent weekend from 2016, when Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie was the top new release. Arriving tomorrow: the well-reviewed Spider-Man: Homecoming.

Top 10 films June 30 – July 2

1. Despicable Me 3, £11,154,904 from 608 sites (new)

2. Baby Driver, £3,605,705 from 543 sites (new)

3. Transformers: The Last Knight, £1,601,971 from 573 sites. Total: £7,942,613 (two weeks)

4. All Eyez on Me, £912,662 from 270 sites (new)

5. Wonder Woman, £911,311 from 525 sites. Total: £20,731,916 (five weeks)

6. The House, £487,542 from 407 sites (new)

7. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, £325,732 from 365 sites. Total: £19,177,195 (six weeks)

8. The Mummy, £306,435 from 337 sites. Total: £8,398,244 (four weeks)

9. Baywatch, £175,955 from 254 sites. Total: £9,374,650 (five weeks)

10. Hampstead, £148,120 from 392 sites. Total: £1,098,311 (two weeks)

Other openers

Alone in Berlin, £108,047 (including £54,003 previews) from 38 sites

Yalghaar, £52,287 from 48 sites

In This Corner of the World, £35,061 (including £27,912 previews) from 15 sites

A Man Called Ove, £34,389 from 26 sites

Kedi, £32,964 (including £6,614 previews) from 16 sites

Risk, £12,181 (including £3,480 previews) from 19 sites

Halal Daddy, £8,953 from 11 sites

Chubby Funny, £2,554 from two sites

Great Sardaar, £1,658 from five sites

Revolutions, £1,080 from one site

Jatra, £864 from 11 sites

Saving Dreams, £420 from eight sites

American Hero, £20 from one site

• Thanks to comScore. All figures relate to takings in UK and Ireland cinemas.