Sony’s Project Hail Mary, starring Ryan Gosling and Sandra Hüller, is the widest new release at the UK-Ireland box office this weekend, playing at 701 sites.
The film already grossed £2m last weekend, playing previews in 632 venues, and breaking into the number two spot in the UK-Ireland box office charts – however its official release date is March 20.
Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who have previously teamed up on The Lego Movie and the 21 Jump Street franchise, direct the space adventure in which a lone astronaut far from home teams up with an extra-terrestrial to investigate the reasons their respective suns are dying. It is based on a novel by Andy Weir, whose book The Martian grossed £23.5m for Fox in UK-Ireland when adapted for screen in 2015.
Disney’s Ready Or Not 2: Here I Come is playing at 468 sites. The SXSW premiere is a direct sequel to the 2019 original, a surprise box office hit that grossed $58m worldwide and around £2m in UK-Ireland, and focused on a woman who finds out her new husband’s wealthy family members are devil-worshippers.
The sequel is once again directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, the US duo behind the Scream franchise reboot. Samara Weaving, David Cronenberg, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Elijah Wood star.
Kaleidoscope’s UK animation The Land Of Sometimes is out at over 300 sites. Leon Joosen directs, with voice cast including Ewan McGregor, Helena Bonham Carter, Alisha Weir, Asa Butterfield and Mel Brooks. Set on Christmas Eve, it follows twins whose father is missing at war.
Park Circus has a 25th anniversary re-release of Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge! at 279 locations.
Moviegoers Entertainment has Aditya Dhar’s Indian Hindi-language spy thriller sequel Dhurandhar: The Revenge at 287 sites. The film opened on Thursday March 19, grossing £426,433 in its first day. It has surpassed previous record holder Pathaan (£319,348, January 2023) for highest-grossing day one for a Hindi film in UK-Ireland.
Universal’s Midwinter Break is at 210 locations. Olivier award-winning playwright Polly Findlay directs the drama starring Lesley Manville and Ciarán Hinds, that unfolds around a retired couple’s tense trip to Amsterdam.
Signature’s The Good Boy is at 243 sites. Jan Komasa’s Toronto and BFI London Film Festival premiere stars Stephen Graham, Andrea Riseborough and Anson Boon. A 19-year-old hooligan revels in a life of drugs, parties, and violence. On a night out, he becomes separated from his friends and is abducted.
Picturehouse has 2D French animation Arco, the debut feature from Ugo Bienvenu, at 204 cinemas. The Natalie Portman-produced film is set in 2075 and played at Cannes and Annecy.
Munro Film is releasing Ashley Chin and Darren R.L. Gordon’s crime drama Apnas at 101 sites. A young British Pakistani man from Manchester is pulled into the criminal underworld by his uncle. Munro also has Jeff Tseng’s open water swimming documentary Don’t Be Prey at 11 sites in the UK only this weekend and opens in Ireland on March 27.
Vertigo Releasing has Gus Van Sant’s Dead Man’s Wire at 85 venues. The Venice premiere dramatises the 1977 kidnapping of a mortgage broker by disgruntled landowner Tony Kiritsis in Indianapolis, US. Cast includes Bill Skarsgard, Dacre Montgomery, Al Pacino, Colman Domingo and Myha’la.
Miracle/Dazzler’s Biblical drama The Last Supper opens at 16 sites this weekend, with seven more being added from Monday March 23. Mauro Borrelli directs the dramatisation of Jesus’ final meal.
Also new in cinemas this weekend: Mubi’s Paolo Sorrentino-directed Venice opener La Grazia; Vue Lumiere’s Marianne Faithfull doc Broken English; and Dreamz Entertainment’s Indian Telugu-language action comedy Ustaad Bhagat Singh.
Key holdovers from last weekend include Disney’s Hoppers and Universal’s Reminders Of Him.
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