The song remains the same: there’s just no room for the little guy in a blockbuster-packed summer schedule.
Irish film folks take heed and beware the ides of the post-March calendar: after three weeks on release, Lenny Abrahamson's excellent Frank has limped out of the top 10 with €167,892. Elsewhere, Hill Street, a pleasing new Irish skateboarding doc, debuted with €1,754 from two sites.
That may not sound like boffo box office, but it's way better averages than last weekend's music documentary: Another Day, Another Time: Celebrating the Music of Inside Llewyn Davis took just €456 from two sites.
Meanwhile the titan tent-poles are going at it: after six weeks on release, The Amazing Spider Man 2 has €1,731,216 in the Irish kitty; Godzilla has taken €992,039 after just two weekends.
This week's big winner, however, is X-Men: Days of Future Past, which (including previews) had €694,616 in the bank by close of business on Sunday. Internationally, the seventh X-Men film has already passed the $300 million mark.
Expect that title to hang on in there as this week's comedy show- down gets underway. Despite some unfortunate recent tweets from Messrs Rogen and Apatow, reigning comedy champ Bad Neighbours is still going strong in the No 3 spot: the film has taken €1,573,062 to date. But will this week's A Million Ways to Die in the West and next week's 22 Jump Street tread on its toes?
Maybe not. After all, Blended, the latest Adam Sandler joint, did little to dent the Neighbours juggernaut. Back in the day, a film in which Adam Sandler inhaled helium and read from the phonebook was a guaranteed ROI No 1. But times change. But Blended debuted here with an unspectacular €63,213 from 58 sites and scored just $14,284,031 Stateside.
Globally, this week's biggest box office story is Frozen. Lingering prints dotted around the planet brought the Disney film up to the $1,219,285,529 this week. It leapfrogged over Iron Man 3 to become the fifth biggest grossing film of all time, some two months after it became the biggest grossing animation film of all time. Can Disney's similarly themed Maleficent repeat the trick? We shall see.
Back at home, Walt Disney Ireland knows well the value of lingering. Bubbling just under the top 10, Muppets Most Wanted – a film once dismissed by box-office analysts as a flop – passed the €1,116,684 mark.
That's not all that far away from the Republic's favourite films of 2014 thus far: The Lego Movie (€3,371,472), The Wolf of Wall Street (€2,327,827), 12 Years a Slave (€1,803,480), The Amazing Spider Man 2 (€1,731,216), Calvary (€1,577,062), Bad Neighbours (€1,573,062), American Hustle (€1,374,861), Frozen (€1,334,518), Captain America: The Winter Soldier (€1,329,907) and Mr Peabody & Sherman (€1,183,663).
