barnesgonzo: Otherworldly Elysium blazes to top of UK box office chart

Neill Blomkamp's sci-fi thriller debuts in top slot, while school holidays continue to boost animated films

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The winner

With £3.13m, Elysium, starring Matt Damon, proved a convincing winner at the UK box office, more than doubling the take of second-placed We're the Millers. That's at first glance, mind you. Neill Blomkamp's dystopian sci-fi achieved its commanding lead in no small part due to £974,000 in Thursday previews, without which its weekend gross would be £2.15m, as against £1.51m for Millers. Blomkamp's previous film District 9 debuted with £2.29m, a sum achieved without the benefit of previews. Given that District 9 was a feature debut and lacked star actors, you might have expected Elysium to deliver a stronger opening, but in fact it's behind the earlier film on a Friday-to-Sunday comparison.

Outside the Bourne films, Damon is commercially patchy as an action star. Green Zone kicked off in March 2010 with £2.09m including £523,000 in previews. Virus thriller Contagion entered the cinema bloodstream in October 2011 with £1.46m.

The runner-up

Although beaten into second place by Elysium, Warner Bros should be reasonably happy with the opening number for We're the Millers. True, Horrible Bosses, featuring Millers stars Jason Sudeikis and Jennifer Aniston, debuted with £2.08m back in July 2011, but arguably undesirable employers represents a more appealing and relatable premise than a fake family smuggling marijuana. The earlier film also benefited from a stronger overall cast including Kevin Spacey, Colin Farrell and Jason Bateman. Millers opened more or less level with this summer's Hollywood comedy The Heat, at least if previews are stripped out of the weekend figure. The Melissa McCarthy/Sandra Bullock mismatched-cops vehicle debuted earlier this month with £1.59m plus £910,000 in previews.

The family surge

With families returning from summer holidays away but kids not yet back at school, cinema outings are still in order, either soaking up titles not yet viewed, or repeat visits. Planes, Monsters University,

Despicable Me 2 and The Smurfs 2 all outperformed the market, with declines from the previous weekend in the 26-35% range, and the next gentlest faller in the top 10 is Grown Ups 2, which also has family appeal despite a 12A rating for "crude humour and comic violence". As of Monday morning, Despicable Me 2 stood at £43.9m, beaten only by Toy Story 2 and 3 and Shrek 2 in the all-time chart for animated features. With £27.6m, Monsters University has now overtaken The Croods to be the second-biggest animated hit of the year, after Despicable Me 2. Together with strong performer Wreck-It Ralph, these four top animations have generated a collective £122m at the UK and Ireland box office.

The young-adult contender

Also certificate 12A, but playing more to a teenage audience, is young-adult adaptation The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones. Based on the book series by Cassandra Clare, the first episode kicked off its run with an OK £1.14m, although that sum is hugely boosted by two days of previews totaling £474,000. Earlier this year, Beautiful Creatures began with a similar £1.11m including £371,000 in previews. And The Host, from the Stephenie Meyer novel, followed with a debut of £991,000. Strip out the previews, and the critically unregarded The Host is in fact the winner of this particular battle.

The year so far

Monthly admissions numbers (actual bums on seats) always arrive after a significant delay, and the ones for July were recently released: 14.32 million. Not only are they lower than the equivalent month for 2012 (15.52 million), but they're sufficiently behind to drag the running tally for the year below 2012 levels. The first seven months of 2013 have seen 96.77 million admissions, which compares with 96.96 million for 2012, so we are down 0.2% so far. That's a tiny margin, but disappointing when you consider that after one month, ie January, admissions this year were already 3.5 million ahead of 2012, a lead that's been eroded ever since. What's more, 2012 finished on a scorching streak that included the final Twilight movie, Skyfall and The Hobbit. This year we have The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, which could surge far ahead of its predecessor, and another Hobbit film, but no Skyfall equivalent. To be fair, cinema admissions in 2012 were the second highest for a decade, as well as the third highest since 1971.

The art-house battle

Although Elysium and Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa (in 13th place) are clearly titles that can sit in the programming mix at art-house cinemas, there's little of a more specialized stripe that's succeeding with audiences.

Lovelace, featuring a starry ensemble led by Amanda Seyfried and Peter Sarsgaard, opened with a poor £86,000 from 80 cinemas. What Maisie Knew, featuring Julianne Moore, Steve Coogan and Alexander Skarsgard, did better with £96,000 from 43 sites, despite being simultaneously available to view at home via Curzon On Demand. Fox Searchlight will be hoping to make a much bigger impact with coming-of-age comedy The Way, Way Back, arriving in cinemas this week.

The future

Despite the current scarcity of breakout hits, that's not unusual in late August during the dog days of summer, and overall the market is 7% up on the equivalent frame from 2012, when Keith Lemon: The Film was the top new release. Now cinemas turn their attention to this week's crop of new films, notably One Direction: This Is Us. With schools still on holiday, the very first showtime on opening day Thursday should witness a healthy turnout from hard-core Directioners, and then it's a question of how much of the band's broader fanbase will be pulled in. Speculation fueled by Ladbrokes that the film is set to perform at the top end of blockbusters seems wide of the mark. Also in the mix are Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne Johnson in Michael Bay's Pain and Gain; well-regarded horror You're Next; and the aforementioned The Way, Way Back.