The other night I was paying only half attention to the telly and thought I saw John Lydon trying to sell me some butter. Must be a mistake. Too much screen time and I’m beginning to see things.
And then a few days later it happened again. Gadding about the countryside and looking for all the world like one of Ron Weasley’s eccentric relatives, the ex-Pistols front man was definitely trying to influence my choice of slippery bread spread.
Fair enough, the man has to earn a crust. But what a turn up for the books! If there was a list of things I thought I’d never see in my lifetime, that would have to be on it somewhere.
And here’s another entry: Mamma Mia! storming the UK box office to become one of the biggest grossing films of the last decade. Say what? No one could've anticipated success on this scale for a theatre land property starring Oscar® winner Meryl Streep alongside Pierce Brosnan dueting 'S.O.S' with all the tuneful feeling of a man with his knackers caught in his flies.
Regular readers will be aware I've been tracking the film's progress for some time. It's a fascinating example of box office idiosyncrasy, as intriguing as it is admirable. The ABBA musical has now passed the £65 million mark according to the latest UK weekend box office figures. The chart below shows how the cumulative box office has grown since the film’s release 14 weeks ago (with data sourced from Nielsen EDI).
The film opened respectably enough at £6.6 million (well short of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets’ opening weekend haul of nearly £19 million in 2002). Seven weeks into its run Mamma Mia! crossed the £50 million mark but the pace of growth began to slow appreciably.
Nonetheless the film continued to play strongly against new releases, riding high in the charts for most of its run. By week 14 the film had grossed £65,197,501, and I reckon it should close its run at around £67 million. This would put it comfortably above Harry Potter’s first outing (Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone, on £66 million), but still behind Titanic (on £69 million, unadjusted for inflation).
This second chart shows another aspect of the story:
Based once again on Nielsen EDI data, the chart gives each weekend’s performance. Notice the spike at week 4 when the release widened from 476 to 519 cinemas, enabling it to capitalise on positive word of mouth from older age groups and other less frequent cinema goers who wait until a film is well into its run before making the trip.
The release widened again in week 6 (to 523 cinemas) but not enough to cause another spike in admissions. From that point onwards fewer cinemas were programming the film, and by week 14 it was playing at 387 venues (though still higher than the number of cinemas screening the best performing film last weekend, The House Bunny at 346 sites).
Then something odd happened in week 13: despite playing at fewer cinemas, the film took more in that weekend than it did in week 12. So what gives? Hard to know for sure. Maybe it was a sudden rush of ageing and disillusioned punks seeking escapism and a bit of harmless fun at the flicks (ABBA weren't so bad, after all). Buttered popcorn anyone?
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