The winner: Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

While four weeks of the World Cup and the heatwave combined to bring tough times to the UK cinema sector, a recovery is now under way, thanks to the arrival of Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again landing in venues a week after Incredibles 2. Many smaller cinemas are playing only these two films, while multiplexes are giving over a significant number of screens to them.

The Mamma Mia! sequel has achieved a UK opening of £9.74m, the fourth biggest of the year so far after Avengers: Infinity War, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and Black Panther. The sum compares with a debut of £5.21m, or £6.59m including previews, for the original Mamma Mia! in July 2008, when tickets were significantly cheaper. That film went on to become a word-of-mouth hit, eventually earning £68m – 13 times the opening weekend’s figures.

Despite some decent reviews, including a five-star rave from Mark Kermode at the Observer, and warm audience reactions (7.3/10 at IMDb), few are expecting Here We Go Again to deliver a run as robust as its predecessor – Mamma Mia! was still in second place in the UK box office chart in its 11th week of release.

The runner-up: Incredibles 2

Declining just 28% from its opening session, Incredibles 2 delivered sturdy second-weekend takings of £6.80m, bringing the UK total after 10 days to £22.4m. That’s already exceeded the lifetime total (£18.8m) of Pixar’s other 2018 release, Coco.

Incredibles 2 has made a faster start than Finding Dory (£20.3m after two weekends) and Inside Out (£17.0m, also after two weekends). It remains behind the pace of Pixar’s box-office champ Toy Story 3, which stood at £39.8m after two weekends, on its way to a £73.9m total.

Incredibles 2 is not currently facing much competition for the family audience – unless you count Thomas & Friends: Big World! Big Adventures! The Movie, which landed in eighth place in the UK chart at the weekend – and it benefits from strong adult appeal.

With children breaking up for the summer holiday, competition for family viewers will intensify this weekend with Hotel Transylvania 3: A Monster Vacation, followed by Teen Titans Go! To the Movies a week later. However, leading animation studios including Illumination Entertainment (Despicable Me) and DreamWorks Animation do not have a film for this summer – good news for Incredibles 2.

The anomaly: Spitfire

According to the official comScore chart, the documentary Spitfire landed in eighth place with £211,464 from six cinemas, delivering a site average of £35,244. Nearly £210,000 of this total was earned in previews – overwhelmingly from the event release into 228 cinemas on Tuesday last week. Not to take anything away from the success of that event, but the weekend gross for the more-focused regular release is modest.

The £40m hit: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

Weekend takings of £618,000 pushed Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom to £39.7m, and the dino movie will certainly pass £40m this week. In doing so, it will become the fourth film this year to pass the milestone, after Avengers: Infinity War, Black Panther and Peter Rabbit. The Greatest Showman, which was released in December, achieved £42.2m of its £46.9m total during 2018. Cinema operators will be hoping that Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again and Incredibles 2 will also reach £40m.

In 2017, only five titles (Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Beauty and the Beast, Dunkirk, Despicable Me 3 and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2) cracked £40m within the calendar year, although Paddington 2 joined them in January. Titles with presumed strong commercial appeal for later this year include Mary Poppins, Fantastic Beasts: the Crimes of Grindelwald and The Grinch. It is not inconceivable that we could be looking at 10 £40m hits at the UK box office this year.

The market

Thanks to the arrival of Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again and a strong hold for Incredibles 2, the UK box office is up 37% on the previous session, which was in turn 133% up on the weekend prior. So, after a poor stretch in late June and early July, cinemas are back in business.

But the champagne can remain on ice a little longer for cinema operators. Despite the massive injection of revenue from the Pixar superheroes and the Abba-warbling sun-seekers, the box office at the weekend remained 11% down on the equivalent session in 2017, during which Dunkirk topped a market that delivered a further five titles achieving at least £1m. July 2017 simply offered a lot more strength in depth.

Here We Go Again and Incredibles 2 will no longer be doing all the heavy lifting with the arrival on Wednesday of Mission: Impossible – Fallout, the well-reviewed sixth instalment in the spy franchise. Hotel Transylvania 3 will join the party on Friday.

Top 10 films in the UK, 20-22 July

1. Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, £9,735,931 from 702 sites (new)

2. Incredibles 2, £6,803,384 from 650 sites. Total: £22,424,082 (two weeks)

3. Skyscraper, £892,723 from 497 sites. Total: £3,813,384 (two weeks)

4. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, £618,226 from 403 sites. Total: £39,682,147 (seven weeks)

5. The First Purge, £506,578 from 311 sites. Total: £4,500,108 (three weeks)

6. Hotel Artemis, £357,261 from 312 sites (new)

7. Ocean’s 8, £270,273 from 265 sites. Total: £10,465,765 (five weeks)

8. Spitfire, £211,464 from 6 sites (new)

9. Thomas & Friends: Big World! Big Adventures! The Movie, £125,081 from 374 sites (new)

10. Dhadak, £114,113 from 66 sites (new)

Other openers

Teefa in Trouble, £46,513 from 35 sites

A Prayer Before Dawn, £26,296 from 19 sites

Generation Wealth, £17,311 from 15 sites

Escape Plan 2, £6,737 from 10 sites

Madame, £4,357 from two sites

The Receptionist, £3,236 from six sites

Dhol Ratti, £739 from four sites

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