The winner: Peter Rabbit

While Black Panther extends its run at the top of the US box office into a rare fifth week, in the UK the Marvel superhero hit succumbs to a well-aimed kick from the family-friendly Peter Rabbit. Very loosely adapted from Beatrix Potter’s children’s tale, this blend of humans (Domhnall Gleeson and Rose Byrne) and digital animals stuns with a £7.27m opening – the second biggest debut of 2018, after Black Panther.

This is below the opening of franchise titles Paddington 2 (£8.26m) and Despicable Me 3 (£11.2m), but ahead of Pixar’s Coco (£3.36m, or £5.21m including previews) and The Boss Baby (£2.80m, or £8.03m including extensive previews). With most schools beginning the Easter break at the end of next week, Peter Rabbit looks set for a nice stretch of rich play.

The runner-up: Tomb Raider

Given the appeal of the rabbity rascals, video game adaptation Tomb Raider had to settle for second place, with an unspectacular debut of £2.55m (£3.08m including Thursday previews). Rather humiliatingly, this is behind the opening numbers of the original adaptation, starring Angelina Jolie, in July 2001, when tickets were considerably cheaper. Lara Croft: Tomb Raider began with £3.85m including previews of £389,000. Two years later, little-loved sequel The Cradle of Life proved significantly less successful, debuting with £1.52m including £259,000 in previews.

In both cases, the producers cast a recent Oscar winner as their star: Jolie won in 2000 for supporting actress in Girl, Interrupted; Alicia Vikander won in 2016 for the same category in The Danish Girl. It’s fair to assume that both actors achieved a hefty pay bump for playing Lara Croft.

The flop: Mary Magdalene

Is Mary Magdalene a prestige drama, targeting audiences attracted by Lion director Garth Davis and a cast including Rooney Mara, Joaquin Phoenix, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Tahar Rahim? Or is it aiming for the faith crowd, who propelled Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ to £11.1m at UK cinemas?

The answer, so far, is that it’s succeeding at being neither, based on its debut of £239,000 from 423 cinemas, yielding a weak £565 average. In 2004, The Passion of the Christ grossed £2.02m on its first weekend of national wide release, from 323 cinemas.

The arthouse challenger: The Square

Delivering the biggest debut for a foreign language arthouse film so far this year, Ruben Östlund’s The Square begins with a robust £155,000 from 56 cinemas, and £221,000 including previews. Recent comparisons are fellow foreign language Oscar nominees Loveless (debut of £74,000 from 39 sites, and £126,000 including previews) and A Fantastic Woman (debut of £64,000 from 38 sites, and £98,000 including previews). Loveless has so far reached £307,000, and A Fantastic Woman, which won the Oscar, is at £239,000.

The Square’s debut compares with a UK opening of £87,000 from 33 cinemas for Swedish director Östlund’s previous film, Force Majeure, in April 2015. Strong word of mouth propelled Force Majeure (“the avalanche movie”) to a healthy £593,000. Distributor Curzon Artificial Eye will be hoping to build on that success with The Square, also leveraging the film’s Cannes Palme d’Or win, a substantial use of English language dialogue, and cast names Elisabeth Moss and Dominic West. A potential negative is the 151 minutes running time.

The event: My Generation

The chart appears to show a fantastic debut for documentary My Generation, in which Michael Caine reflects on the cultural and social upheavals of the 1960s. It took £260,000 from 17 sites, but £251,000 of that was earned from last Wednesday’s premiere event, relayed to hundreds of cinemas nationwide. The weekend number is a more humble £9,400.

The market

Largely thanks to the arrival of Peter Rabbit, the market is 54% up on the previous session. However, it’s exactly a year since the arrival of Disney’s massively successful Beauty and the Beast, so UK and Ireland box office is down a troubling 42% on that weekend. Box office has been down on the year-ago equivalents for every week of March so far, and it looks highly unlikely that the month can catch up. Titles arriving this weekend include A Wrinkle in Time, Pacific Rim: Uprising and Steven Soderbergh’s Unsane.

Top 10 films March 16-18

1. Peter Rabbit, £7,237,207 from 599 sites (new)

2. Tomb Raider, £3,081,916 from 585 sites (new)

3. Black Panther, £1,881,691 from 532 sites. Total: £42,779,145 (five weeks)

4. The Greatest Showman, £1,059,983 from 514 sites. Total: £38,904,203 (12 weeks)

5. Red Sparrow, £588,634 from 430 sites. Total: £5,278,099 (three weeks)

6. Game Night, £540,977 from 423 sites. Total: £3,650,285 (three weeks)

7. Lady Bird, £293,131 from 382 sites. Total: £4,702,917 (four weeks)

8. The Shape of Water, £289,641 from 311 sites. Total: £6,978,097 (five weeks)

9. Finding Your Feet, £285,202 from 406 sites. Total: £4,437,675 (four weeks)

10. My Generation, £259,990 from 17 sites (new)

Other openers

Mary Magdalene, £238,924 from 423 sites

The Square, £221,256 (including £66,712 previews) from 56 sites

Raid, £83,414 from 51 sites

Damo and Ivor the Movie, £64,895 from 66 sites (Ireland)

The Magic Flute, £4,686 from four sites (reissue)

Psycho Virtual, £1,545 from two sites

Unless, £1,095 from three sites

Gook, £1,012 from two sites

My Golden Days, £981 from two sites

Raja Abroadiya, £682 from six sites

Shikkari Shambhu, £585 from eight sites

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