Box Office

Universal

3D family animation The Grinch has dislodged Bohemian Rhapsody from the number one slot at the top of the UK box office, taking £5m from its first three days.



Playing in 561 sites, the film scored a decent average of £8,956. It achieved Universal’s best opening in the UK since Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again started with a £9.7m three-day weekend in July this year.



It also surpasses the £3m opening for Ron Howard’s live-action The Grinch starring Jim Carrey (called How The Grinch Stole Christmas in the US) in 2000, although the two figures are almost identical when taking into account inflation.

Pushing The Hunger Games: Catching Fire aside after its two weeks at the top spot, Disney's Frozen opened with £4.70m. That's by no means the top number for an animation this year – Despicable Me 2 debut gathered £14.82m, including £4.87m in previews in June – but it's a solid start for a film presumed to play to the Christmas audience. Family films targeting the Christmas market have a knack of playing strongly right through until Christmas Eve, and if the festive association is not too strong can, continue to play beyond that date.



Two years ago, Aardman's Arthur Christmas debuted with a so-so £2.11m, but by Christmas Day had managed £19.66m, and eventually reached £20.84m. (A re-release a year later pushed it to £21.08m.) Last year, DreamWorks Animation's Rise of the Guardians kicked off with £1.97m, and went on to achieve £12.49m – hardly a stunning result, but nevertheless more than six times the opening.

However, with U.S. schools acknowledging Veterans Day tomorrow, business for the Mean One could near $70M.

Another entertaining addition was a plump reindeer named Fred, who provides some laughs as he attempts to carry the Grinch’s massive sleigh. And while Cindy Lou Who still meets the Grinch while delivering a letter to Santa, in this go-around, the wide-eyed Who is on a quest for Saint Nick to thank him for helping her widowed mom during the holidays. None of these are exactly ground-breaking additions, but they fit in with the Seuss spirit and make this version of “The Grinch” feel like more than a tired retread.

The Grinch, voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch, is huge hit, opening with $66 million, and that doesn’t yet include the money it will bring in on Veteran’s Day when most kids around America are out of school. Holiday movies also tend to have long box office legs, too, so this one will likely continue picking up receipts for the next six weeks. Take, for instance, the forgettable Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn film, Four Christmases, which opened with an OK $31 million on Thanksgiving weekend back in 2008. That film, despite its mediocrity, legged it out to $120 million. Ron Howard’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas opened a week later than The Grinch in 2000 with $55 million and did nearly a 4.5x multiple, ending with $260 million and that movie was fairly awful. The Grinch will get a lot of box-office competition from holiday tentpoles between now and New Year’s, but it’s the only holiday movie in the game this year (aside from the nearly already forgotten Nutcracker movie), so I expect it will eventually parlay that $66 million opening into potentially upwards of $200 million, domestically.

Reviews haven’t been particularly kind — 54 percent on Rotten Tomatoes — but kids don’t read reviews, and having seen the film, I doubt kids will come away unhappy (while parents can spend 90 minutes mildly amused). It is receiving an A- from Cinemascore, and I expect all that held it back from an ‘A’ were older folks who are unwilling to accept anything except the original television special. This Grinch, after all, is far less Grinchy here — he’s downright adorable, at times — but the movie capably blends Illumination-style animation with Dr. Seuss for a nice update.