The winners: kids’ movies

The final days of the half-term holiday saw strong performances from family films at the UK box office. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part led the way, declining a slim 2% from the previous weekend, and adding £6.6m for the seven days ending Sunday night. UK total after three weeks is a decent £14m.

How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, which was 1% up on the previous weekend, added £4.4m over the seven days, and is now at £15.9m. Lego is closing the gap with Dragon, but it’s anyone’s guess which title will achieve the bigger UK total.

After its disappointing start, The Kid Who Would Be King recovered lost ground, rising 4% from its opening session. Total after 10 days remains a mediocre £2.6m. Distributor 20th Century Fox might have hoped for better with this title in its home market, given a reported production budget of $59m. Worldwide box office is $26m so far.

Also in the Top 5 are Instant Family (down for the weekend by a relatively slim 16%) and Alita: Battle Angel (down 39%).

The disappointment: Cold Pursuit

Revenge tale Cold Pursuit, starring Liam Neeson, was the highest new entry (in sixth place) but took an uninspiring £631,000 from 417 cinemas, yielding a site average of £1,514.

Neeson was last seen on UK cinema screens in a supporting role in Widows. His last lead role was in The Commuter, which began in January 2018 with £1.55m from 472 sites (£1.6m including previews). Cold Pursuit has begun with less than half that amount. Worldwide total is $35m so far.

The prestige drama: On the Basis of Sex

Landing a couple of places below Cold Pursuit in the chart, despite a release into a few dozen more cinemas, is the biographical drama about the early years of crusading lawyer and future US supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The film, which stars Felicity Jones and Armie Hammer, began with a flat £459,000 from 452 cinemas, delivering a site average just above £1,000.

On the Basis of Sex attracted mostly three-star reviews, which were not enthusiastic enough to position this film as a must-see for audiences already sated by awards-season titles such as The Favourite, Green Book, Vice, Mary Queen of Scots, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, Colette and Stan & Ollie.

The arthouse alternative: Capernaum

Oscar foreign language film nominees Cold War, Shoplifters and Roma all reached UK cinemas last year. The fourth of the nominated titles, Capernaum, arrived on Friday, beginning with a decent £85,100 from 48 sites (£141,000 including previews). Director Nadine Labaki was previously in UK cinemas in 2012 with Where Do We Go Now?, which achieved a lifetime total of £91,700. Before that, her Caramel began in May 2008 with £104,000 from 46 cinemas (£123,000 including previews), on its way to a total just below £500,000.

The fifth title nominated in the foreign language category at the Oscars, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s Never Look Away, is not yet slated for UK release.

The market

For the seventh weekend in a row, the UK market is down on the equivalent session from 2018, this time by 42%. The month of January was 18% down on January 2018, and the numbers do not look any more encouraging for February. Cinema operators are counting the days until the arrival of Disney’s Captain Marvel on 8 March. Until then, hopes are pinned on Fighting With My Family, a comedy-drama about a real-life wrestling family written and directed by Stephen Merchant, and with Dwayne Johnson playing himself in a supporting role. Keira Knightley leads the cast of The Aftermath, set in Hamburg after the second world war. Sky Cinema offers high-concept thriller Serenity, written and directed by Steven Knight, with a cast led by Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway.

Top 10 films, 22-24 February

1. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part, £2,410,824 from 661 sites. Total: £14,014,439 (three weeks)

2. Instant Family, £1,672,863 from 562 sites. Total: £6,398,291 (two weeks)

3. How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, £1,665,724 from 644 sites. Total: £15,877,875 (four weeks)

4. Alita: Battle Angel, £870,704 from 478 sites. Total: £7,721,031 (three weeks)

5. The Kid Who Would Be King, £651,610 from 512 sites. Total: £2,595,481 (two weeks)

6. Cold Pursuit, £631,467 from 417 sites (new)

7. Green Book, £473,562 from 499 sites. Total: £6,178,872 (four weeks)

8. On the Basis of Sex, £458,914 from 452 sites (new)

9. Total Dhamaal, £250,601 from 81 sites (new)

10. Bohemian Rhapsody, £209,037 from 297 sites. Total: £53,745,135 (18 weeks)

Other openers

Capernaum, £140,770 (including £55,680 previews) from 48 sites

Kumbalangi Nights, £39,377 from 71 sites

Elves and the Shoemaker – Northern Ballet Bite Size Ballets, £14,385 from 145 sites

LKG, £10,373 from 12 sites

High End Yaariyaan, £9,315 from 11 sites

Old Boys, £7,677 from four sites

Woman Walks Ahead, £1,274 from one site

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