The winner: Captain Marvel

Posting the biggest weekend debut at UK cinemas since The Avengers: Infinity War nearly 11 months ago, Captain Marvel has arrived to rescue the sector from the box office doldrums. The superhero film has begun with £12.75m from 655 cinemas: the biggest ever three-day opening for a Marvel standalone debut.

Last year, Black Panther began with £10.5m for the three-day weekend period, although three days of previews pushed the opening number to £17.7m. In October 2016, Doctor Strange debuted with £9.29m, including previews of £3.8m. Opening numbers for the first Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and Ant-Man films were all lower. Deadpool began in February 2016 with £9.97m for the three-day weekend period and £13.73m including previews.

The absence of any other giant hits in January or February should have stoked consumer demand for blockbuster entertainment. Conversely, the deflated market deprived Disney of vital marketing opportunities: there were fewer cinemagoers to be shown the Captain Marvel trailer on the big screen.

While DC Comics’ Wonder Woman was a big global hit, grossing $413m in the US and $822m worldwide, the film underperformed in the UK, reaching £22.2m. Any fears that the female-powered Captain Marvel might suffer the same fate have been allayed. In April 2018, Avengers: Infinity War began with £23.1m for the three-day weekend, finally reaching £70.8m. A similar trajectory would take Captain Marvel to around £39m.

Captain Marvel grossed 68% of the entire UK box office at the weekend, with the other 189 titles on release (tracked by data gatherer Comscore) sharing the remaining 32% of the pie. Globally, the film began with $457m.

The arthouse alternative: Everybody Knows

Achieving the highest site average of any film in the UK top 15 apart from Captain Marvel is Everybody Knows, the latest from Iranian director Asghar Farhadi (A Separation). The film, which is the director’s first in Spanish, has begun with £113,000 from 54 cinemas, and £118,000 including previews.

Everybody Knows, which stars Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem, has delivered the biggest three-day opening for an arthouse foreign language title since Paweł Pawlikowski’s Cold War last August. Farhadi’s film opened marginally ahead of Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Shoplifters, which began last November with £108,000, and £118,000 including previews. More recently, Nadine Labaki’s Capernaum kicked off with £85,000, and £141,000 including previews.

Everybody Knows faced competition for arthouse audiences from other new releases The Kindergarten Teacher, Border, Ray & Liz and Maiden – all achieving site averages below £1,000, if previews are ignored from consideration.

The flop

Apart from Captain Marvel, the only other new film released into more than 100 cinemas at the weekend was Miss Bala – Catherine Hardwicke’s take on the 2011 Mexican film of the same name. Gina Rodriguez stars as a US citizen who gets caught up in a world of crime when she returns to her family’s original home in Tijuana.

Miss Bala grossed a mediocre $15m during its US release beginning on 1 February, and it’s fair to say that Sony did not exactly make the film a priority release in the UK market. The inevitable followed, and Miss Bala began with a poor £18,700 from 107 cinemas, yielding a dismal £175 site average. A better fate presumably awaits the title when it transitions to home-entertainment platforms.

The market

After an eight-week run when UK cinema grosses fell below the equivalent numbers from a year ago, the market is finally fighting back. Thanks to the arrival of Captain Marvel, grosses are 65% up on the second weekend of March 2018. February ended with the UK market already a whopping £57m behind the first two months of 2018 – to catch up, cinemas would need the six biggest films of this year to all gross £10m more than the equivalent films from last year. Luckily, with the likes of Star Wars: Episode IX, Avengers: Endgame, Toy Story 4, The Lion King and Frozen II (all from Disney) on their way, 2019 does look capable of providing those giant hits.

In the meantime, it is more modest titles that are chancing their luck against the second session of Captain Marvel. Fisherman’s Friends is positioned as a heartwarming British comedy, based on an unlikely true story, about shanty-singing Cornish fishermen scoring a hit album. Taraji P Henson stars in What Men Want, a gender-reversed flip on the Mel Gibson hit What Women Want (2000). And Lucas Hedges and Julia Roberts head up the US indie addiction tale Ben Is Back.

Top 10 films March 8-10

1. Captain Marvel, £12,750,000 from 655 sites (new)

2. Fighting with My Family, £1,026,797 from 564 sites. Total: £3,648,932 (2 weeks)

3. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part, £816,200 from 599 sites. Total: £16,789,254 (5 weeks)

4. Instant Family, £673,286 from 483 sites. Total: £9,049,572 (4 weeks)

5. How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, £655,248 from 569 sites. Total: £18,078,308 (6 weeks)

6. Green Book, £510,848 from 485 sites. Total: £8,391,687 (6 weeks)

7. The Aftermath, £261,294 from 523 sites. Total: £1,347,795 (2 weeks)

8. The Kid Who Would Be King, £180,376 from 418 sites. Total: £3,304,720 (4 weeks)

9. The Sleeping Beauty – Bolshoi Ballet, £176,849 from 153 sites (new)

10. Alita: Battle Angel, £169,459 from 291 sites. Total: £9,013,097 (5 weeks)

Other openers

Everybody Knows, £118,080 (including £4,888 previews) from 54 sites

Badia, £78,693 from 34 sites

Border, £79,773 (including £37,890 previews) from 49 sites

The Kindergarten Teacher, £61,366 (including £13,012 previews) from 73 sites

Maiden, £45,277 (including £35,283 previews) from 16 sites

Guddiyan Patole, £21,303 from 8 sites

Miss Bala, £18,832 from 107 sites

Ray & Liz, £16,436 (including £4,952 previews) from 13 sites

Scotch: The Golden Dram, £4,939 from 22 sites

Oldur Beni Sevgilim, £3,994 from 3 sites

Tobol, £2,006 from 8 sites

Heat and Dust (4K restoration), £1,182 from 1 site

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