DC superheroes reign supreme as Paddington 2’s Peruvian émigré leaves Murder on the Orient Express at the platform

The winner: Justice League
The $94m debut for Justice League in the US has been branded a disappointment, but it’s not so clear that the £7.26m UK debut can be so easily described. First, if previews are ignored, that figure ranks as the eighth-biggest opening of 2017, behind Beauty and the Beast, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2, Despicable Me 3, Dunkirk, It, Fast & Furious 8 and Paddington 2. So, not so shabby.

Second, the UK just hasn’t been such a consistent supporter of DC movies. Take Wonder Woman, which opened at $103m in the US, on its way to a $413m total. It’s the second-biggest hit of the year so far in North America. In the UK, it began with £4.96m (£6.18m including previews), maxing out with £22.2m – only the 16th-biggest hit of the year so far in this market. Justice League has opened bigger.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cxixDgHUYw

Wonder Woman benefited from warm word-of-mouth, ending up with more than four times its opening box-office number. It remains to be seen how Justice League holds up. User rating is a decent 7.4/10 at IMDb.

The runner-up: Paddington 2
Despite opening with a whopping £8.26m, Paddington 2 falls just 20% in its second session, for a 10-day total of £16.9m. This compares with £10.3m for Paddington at the same stage of its run three years ago. The planets look well aligned for Paddington 2 to reach a giant total. The film opened 18 days earlier in the calendar than the original movie and so has all those extra play dates in the run-up to Christmas. It will face competition for the family audience from the animated Ferdinand (arriving 16 December) and Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (20 December), but don’t discount the possibility of the marmalade-loving bear sustaining a presence right through the Christmas holidays – especially if repeat business kicks in. The original film reached £37.9m in the UK.

This weekend, Paddington 2 and Murder on the Orient Express should become the 18th and 19th releases to reach £20m at the UK box office this year. Justice League should eventually become the 20th, then we have Star Wars: The Last Jedi next month. In 2016, only 17 films reached that figure. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43_KLNaEc6M