The Crazies surge to UK box bureau success Charles Gant Film

Explosive success ... Brett Rickaby (left), Timothy Olyphant and Radha Mitchell in The Crazies. Photograph: Saeed Adyani

The winnerThe Crazies valid once again that concepts, not marquee names, are aristocrat at today"s multiplex. Despite not in a big star, it was the usually new recover this week end to open at £1m-plus, and the usually one to grasp a shade normal on tip of £3,000. This reconstitute of a little-seen 1973 George Romero zombie-horror benefited from a obviously tangible assembly and a miss of foe in the genre market, opening not far at the back of the entrance figure of the 2003 reconstitute of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (£1.36m) and roughly passed turn with the initial week end of 2006"s The Hills Have Eyes (£1.13m). With a prolongation bill estimated by IMDBPro at $12m, the pretension is approaching to be completely essential for the investors and general distributors.

The Crazies Production year: 2010 Countries: Rest of the world, USA Cert (UK): fifteen Runtime: 101 mins Directors: Breck Eisner Cast: Danielle Panabaker, Joe Anderson, Radha Mitchell, Timothy Olyphant, Timothy Olyphant More on this movie

The old-geezer losersJohn Travolta (56), Harrison Ford (67) and Robert De Niro (66) competed to see who could have the greatest bomb. Travolta landed in eighth place in the draft with From Paris With Love, whilst Ford"s Extraordinary Measures managed an outrageous 17th, and De Niro"s Everybody"s Fine (which at slightest had the pretext of a some-more medium shade count) entered the charts at No 21.

From Paris With Love was an try by writer Luc Besson and executive Pierre Morel to repeat the success of Taken, with the same multiple of US star, English denunciation and Paris setting. But sixteen years after Pulp Fiction, Travolta isn"t terribly suggestive to the immature males that expostulate the box-office for movement fare, and co-star Jonathan Rhys Meyers is far from a bankable heading man. As for the film, the informed multiple of shootouts and car chases represents a miss of mutation compared to the athleticism and physicality of Morel"s directorial entrance District 13, an sparkling brew of parkour and armed forces arts.

But even From Paris With Love"s entrance of £679,000 was approach forward of Extraordinary Measures. The disease drama, starring Ford and Brendan Fraser, valid rarely resistible to audiences, achieving a shade normal of usually £549 at an ambitiously far-reaching 240 cinemas. De Niro"s Everybody"s Fine rolled out at 111 sites, with an normal of £603: with intermediate reviews and no nominations, this movie is one adult fool around as well most in a cluttered market.

The also-ransLikewise struggling to find most foster with audiences, Ireland-set romcom Leap Year non-stop one nick on tip of From Paris With Love, but with a reduce shade average, and Jean-Pierre Jeunet"s Micmacs unsuccessful to precedence the rarely perceivable press promotion debate in to poignant sheet sales. Micmacs" entrance of £183,000 from 85 screens compares with £312,000 from 121 cinemas for the opening week end of Jeunet"s prior film, A Very Long Engagement, and a £560,000 launch from 82 locations for his Amélie. As for Leap Year, the UK distributor had to say with the film"s lead actor, Matthew Goode, bad-mouthing it in a journal talk (he called it "turgid" and indicated his be vexed for the book and score). The critics (21% Fresh at Rotten Tomatoes) could frequency have been approaching to be some-more complimentary.

The genuine winnerThe usually movie in the draft to see the box-office transport enlarge from the prior week end is A Single Man, that is winning the dinner-party fight as the peculiarity movie of the impulse to see and have an perspective on. In the 7 days given Colin Firth won the endowment for most appropriate singer at the Baftas, Tom Ford"s fool around has banked a nifty £683,000, bringing the total, to date, really close to £2m. It is obviously set to pass An Education, that nabbed the Bafta for most appropriate singer and has so far grossed £2.32m.

Another hero at the Baftas was the leader for most appropriate unfamiliar denunciation film, A Prophet, that has eventually stabilised right away that it has marked down to a core of twenty screens. The film"s discouraging box-office plunges of new weeks are no more, and it took in £30,500, compared to £30,700 the prior weekend. Whether or not it repeats the Bafta success at the Oscars on Sunday, it is approaching to have a prolonged hold up at the arthouses.

The Bollywood hitPar for the march for Bollywood films, My Name Is Khan is saying high weekly drops, but with accumulative takings of £2.32m it is right away the second-biggest UK Indian hit, at the back of usually 2001"s Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham (£2.50m). Only 4 Bollywood drive-in theatre have ever privileged the £2m separator in the UK: the alternative dual are 2006"s Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna and 2004"s Veer Zaara. My Name Is Khan would have to humour catastrophic falls over the subsequent integrate of weeks to equivocate overtaking K3G to turn the UK"s greatest ever Bollywood hit.

The futureWith the marketplace altogether slipping 3% from the homogeneous support from 2009, when Slumdog Millionaire and Gran Torino led the field, cinemas are hotly expecting the attainment of Tim Burton"s Alice in Wonderland on Friday. All the big plex bondage have right away done their assent with Disney over the film"s early DVD recover date, as if extracting some-more inexhaustible conditions in the income separate on box office. This equates to Alice will be singular usually by the still deficient series of 3D screens, where it will as if lose the late-evening showtime to Avatar. Alice will additionally fool around on 2D screens, of course, but you usually have to see at the Avatar formula – 89% of the sum box-office completed on 3D screens, 11% in 2D – to see the immaterial worth of those sites for a 3D film. As for Avatar, the 26-28 Feb weekend, that once again saw James Cameron"s movie tip the chart, might infer the last hurrah. After eleven weekends of overwhelming grosses and peaceful declines, it contingency certainly right away experience a big drop, losing so most showtimes to Alice at 3D venues.

UK tip 10, 26-28 February1. Avatar, £2,260,319 from 398 sites. Total: £86,799,6522. The Lovely Bones, £1,203,251 from 424 sites. Total: £3,848,5743. The Crazies, £1,194,207 from 345 sites (New)4. The Princess and the Frog, £870,953 from 486 sites. Total: £9,985,4955. Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, £853,859 from 472 sites. Total: £6,413,0386. Valentine"s Day, £822,366 from 432 sites. Total: £9,330,1617. Leap Year, £728,251 from 331 sites (New)8. From Paris With Love, £678,950 from 280 sites (New)9. A Single Man, £381,489 from 105 sites. Total: £1,950,35010. Invictus, £292,899 from 238 sites. Total: £4,225,080

How the alternative openers didMicmacs, 85 screens, £182,529Extraordinary Measures, 240 screens, £131,759Everybody"s Fine, 111 screens, £68,948Karthik Calling Karthik, twenty-eight screens, £62,903Capitalism: A Love Story, fifteen screens, £29,595Teen Patti, twenty-one screens, £13,368Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa, 6 screens, £13,247Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, 1 screen, £5,450She, A Chinese, 1 screen, £1,350Freestyle, 6 screens, £1,232Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever, 6 screens, £98