Star Wars: The Last Jedi races past the rest at the UK box office

The winner: Star Wars: The Last Jedi

At the start of the year, UK cinema owners agreed that the biggest film of 2017 would likely be one released in the final weeks: Star Wars: The Last Jedi. The only question was: how big? Star Wars: The Force Awakens remains the biggest film of all time at the UK box office, overtaking Skyfall (£103m) with a stonking £123m. Could the sequel match up?

Star Wars: The Last Jedi went into 723 UK and Irish cinemas, the widest release for a film. Opening weekend is a very robust £20.3m, the biggest of 2017, overtaking Beauty and the Beast (£19.7m). Including Thursday, The Last Jedi’s number rose to a four-day £28m. In comparison, The Force Awakens debuted with £24.3m in three days and £34m in four days. The Last Jedi is running either 16% or 18% behind its predecessor, depending on whether you compare the three-day or four-day numbers.

There had been speculation that The Last Jedi could end up even bigger than The Force Awakens, though this overlooks the fact that 2015’s The Force Awakens was the first new Star Wars film in 10 years, and fan appetite was huge. The Last Jedi is the third Star Wars film in the space of two years, following last year’s Rogue One.

The Last Jedi’s £20.3m three-day opening number is the third-biggest of all time in the UK, behind The Force Awakens and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (£23.7m). Spectre delivered a three-day £20.0m, although a more generous preview strategy pushed its overall opening number to £41.3m. Skyfall began with £20.2m and no previews.

The runner-up: Paddington 2

With Christmas looming, and schools already beginning to break up for the festive season, families are now in holiday mode. The transition helped Paddington 2 achieve a relatively slim decline at the UK box office, down just 20% from the previous session. Total after six weeks is £31.4m, making the bear adventure the sixth biggest hit of the year so far (see the Top 20 chart for 2017, below.) Cinemas will now be banking on robust traffic for Paddington 2 all the way through to the end of the school holidays in early January. The original Paddington film ended up on £37.9m.

The market

Thanks to the arrival of The Last Jedi, the market overall is 437% up on the previous session (which was, admittedly, the weakest for box office in more than four years), and 43% up on the equivalent weekend from 2016, which greeted the arrival of Rogue One. Box office for January-to-November was 4% up on 2016 levels, and a strong finish to 2017, after a weak early December, should see the lead maintained. Yet to come are animation Ferdinand (which effectively arrived in cinemas on Saturday but has not officially opened), Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Pitch Perfect 3 and Hugh Jackman musical The Greatest Showman.

2017: the year in review

Despite the tales of gloom about the US box office this summer, the UK has delivered another strong year in 2017, led by breakout hits Beauty and the Beast (£72.4m) and Dunkirk (£56.7m). Beauty and the Beast is bigger than 2016’s biggest hit, Rogue One, and The Last Jedi will almost certainly likewise end up bigger. The wealth has also been spread a little more widely, with 20 films achieving at least £20m in box office, compared with only 17 in 2016. Films performing above expectations include It, Spider-Man: Homecoming and La La Land – all taking more than £30m.

Wonder Woman, with $413m, is the second-biggest hit of the year at the US box office, behind only Beauty and the Beast ($504m). In the UK, Wonder Woman ranks only 19th for the year, with £22.2m. Similarly, Justice League ranks 11th for the year in the US and only 22nd in the UK. The star performer in the UK relative to the US is, perhaps unsurprisingly, the locally relevant Dunkirk, which ranks only 12thfor the year in North America. Paddington 2 has yet to be released in the US.