Full text:

By Ben Dalton | 4 April 2025

The UK-Ireland box office suffered a slow month in March, with takings dropping 35% compared to March 2024.

The £50.7m total in March brought year-to-date takings to £245.5m - on a par with 2024, having been 15% up at the end of Fabruary.

The drop is partly explained by the school Easter holidays, which are yet to occur in 2025 and fell during March 2024; but also by a weaker release slate, with Dune: Part Two contributing £22.2m in March 2024.

UK-Ireland March 2025 top 10 Rank Title (origin) Distributor Release date March total 2025 total

1 Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy (Fr-UK-US) Universal 14/2/25 £7.5m £45.8m

2 Disney’s Snow White (US) Disney 21/3/25 £7.3m £7.3m

3 Mickey 17 (S Kor-US) Warner Bros 7/3/25 £6.8m £6.8m

4 Black Bag (US) Universal 14/3/25 £3.3m £3.3m

5 Marching Powder (UK) True Brit 7/3/25 £3m £3m

6 Captain America: Brave New World (US) Disney 14/2/25 £1.8m £18m

7 Ne Zha 2 (China) Trinity/CineAsia 21/3/25 £1.4m £1.4m

8 L2: Empuraan (India) RFT Film 28/3/25 £1.3m £1.3m

9 Dog Man (US) Universal 7/2/25 £1.2m £13.4m

10 A Working Man (UK-US) Warner Bros 28/3/25 £1m £1m

Monthly figures from Mar 7-April 4, 2025, courtesy of ComScore

Nothing has come close to that amount in 2025, with February release Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy as the highest-grossing release with £7.4m - the second month it has topped the monthly chart. The Universal title is the highest-grossing film of 2025 with £45.8m – more than two-and-a-half times the total of the second-highest-grossing title, Disney’s Captain America: Brave New World with £18m.

This year’s Easter Holidays run from April 5-22 for most schools. Cinemas will look to regain the ground lost in March with titles including Warner Bros’ A Minecraft Movie (opening today), Universal event title Six The Musical (Sunday 6) and Park Circus re-releases including Babe (April 11) and Wallace And Gromit: Curse Of The Were-Rabbit (April 18).

Takings are still up 9% compared to the same period from 2023.

March titles

Disney took second spot for March 2025, with musical adaptation Snow White taking £7.3m after two weeks. It will soon overtake West Side Story (£7.8m) to become the second-highest-grossing title starring Rachel Zegler, behind The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes (£18.2m).

March releases also took places three-to-five in the chart: Bong Joon Ho’s sci-fi thriller Mickey 17 in third for Warner Bros, Steven Soderbergh’s Black Bag in fourth for Universal; and the highest-grossing independent title of the month, Nick Love’s UK drug comedy Marching Powder for True Brit Entertainment. With £3m, that film is now Danny Dyer’s second-highest-grossing of all time, behind only Mean Machine (£4.4m).

Major titles from international territories took two spots on the UK-Ireland list: Chinese blockbuster Ne Zha 2, released by Trinity Film/CineAsia to £1.4m in March; and Bollywood action film L2: Empuraan, which opened on March 28 and has £1.3m already.

Daily Box Office(April 4th 2025 - Qingming Festival)

The market hits ¥159M/$21.8M which is up +340% from yesterday and up +489% from last week.

Province map of the day:

Minecraft dominates on its opening day but Ne Zha 2 and We Girls grab a few provinces each.

https://imgsli.com/MzY2NTc2

In Metropolitan cities:

Minecraft wins Beijing, Chongqing, Chengdu, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Suzhou, Nanjing and Hangzhou

City tiers:

Minecraft tops T1-3 but Ne Zha 2 relentless even against new releases in T4.

Tier 1: Minecraft>We Girls>Mumu

Tier 2: Minecraft>We Girls>Mumu

Tier 3: Minecraft>We Girls>Ne Zha 2

Tier 4: Ne Zha 2>Minecraft>We Girls

Pre-Sales map for tomorrow

Minecraft dominates pre-sales for tomorrow but Ne Zha 2 is creeping.

https://i.imgur.com/kBqR78o.png

Minecraft

Mario ended up being the perfect comp for this movie as it pointed towards a $6.51M opening day and Minecraft delivered a $6.50M opening day. Best for Holywood since Venom 3.

Weekend should be frontloaded due to the Holiday with Minecraft looking at a $15M-ish opening weekend.

WoM figures:

Decent reception out of the gate. Not quite as strong as Mario which opened with 9.4 on Maoyan.

Maoyan: 9.1 , Taopiaopiao: 9.3 , Douban:

Gender Split(M-W): 49-51

Gender Rating Split: Maoyan: M(8.8)/W(9.4), Taopiaopiao: M(8.9)/W(9.5)

Language split: English: 68.2%, Mandarin: 31.8%

Scheduled showings update for Minecraft for the next few days:

Ne Zha 2

Ne Zha 2 can't stop won't stop as it grossed a fantastic $3.89M on Friday taking the total gross in China to $2086.07M. Massive holiday boost and its projected to further increase tomorrow overtaking We Girls for 2nd.

Ne Zha 2 is now looking at a $11-12M 10th weekend. $12-13M 4 day.

With International gross added Ne Zha 2 has now reached $2142M+ and heads for $2150M+ through the weekend.

Ne Zha 2 hits ¥15.12B which means it has now 3x the gross of Ne Zha 1. Ne Zha 2 also hits 317M admissions meaning its now less than 2M away from doubling Wolf Warriors 2's 159M admissions which was the previous record.

Gross split:

Mongolia and the whole of Scandinavia set for a release at the end of April.

It has now officialy been confirmed for an India release on Ne Zha 2 on April 24th. According to rumors it could get up to 3 separate dubs but this is far from confirmed.

It will also release in France on April 23rd.

Weekly pre-sales vs last week

Pre-sales for tomorrow are up +9% versus last week and up +5% vs yesterday.

Saturday: ¥4.57M vs ¥4.98M (+9%)

Sunday: ¥1.40M vs ¥0.96M (-32%)

Monday: ¥0.45M vs ¥0.15M (-67%)

WoM figures:

Maoyan: 9.8 , Taopiaopiao: 9.7 , Douban: 8.5

Ne Zha 2 is the best rated movie of all time on Maoyan.

Gender Split(M-W): 40-60

Gender Rating Split: Maoyan: M(9.8)/W(9.8), Taopiaopiao: M(9.6)/W(9.7)

Screen Distribution Split: Regular: $1877.69M, IMAX: $154.67M, Rest: $43.00M

Language split: Mandarin: 100%

Scheduled showings update for Ne Zha 2 for the next few days:

Other stuff:

The next holywood movie releasing is Minecraft on April 4th followed by the re-release of Furious 7 on the 11th.

Release Schedule:

A table including upcoming movies in the next month alongside trailers linked in the name of the movie, Want To See data from both Maoyan and Taopiaopiao alongside the Gender split and genre.

Remember Want To See is not pre-sales. Its just an anticipation metric. A checkbox of sorts saying your interested in an upcoming movie.

Not all movies are included since a lot are just too small to be worth covering.

April:

May/Labor Day Holiday(May 1st-5th)Lineup

So I’m at the Stars & Stripes Drive-In in New Braunfels, Texas and it is packed as all hell for Minecraft, at least 300 people. Anyways, The Day The Earth Blew Up is the second feature, do drive-ins playing it as the second feature count toward its sales? What’s the split on ticket money for double feature drive-ins versus a typical theater showing?

https://www.the-numbers.com/news/259040830-Weekend-predictions-Minecraft-heading-to-monster-opening

LOGLINE:

When a mentally ill young man thinks he witnesses an abduction and the police refuse to believe him, he reluctantly turns to his next door neighbor.

The Force Awakens - $90.2M

Avatar - $68.4M

Avatar 2 - $67.4M

Black Panther - $66.3M

Endgame - $63.2M

Infinity War - $62M

Mario - $59.9M

Inside Out 2 - $57.5M

No Way Home - $56M

The Avengers - $55.6M

Jurassic World - $54.5M

Deadpool 3 - $53.7M

Barbie - $53M

The Last Jedi - $52.5M

Top Gun: Maverick - $51.8M

Rogue One - $49.6M

Incredibles 2 - $46.4M

Black Panther 2 - $45.5M

Beauty and the Beast - $45.4M

SpiderMan 2002 - $45M

As someone who only has a basic understanding of most economic concepts, I am definitely curious if there will be significant negative externalities from this bonkers trade war with respect to the entertainment industry . For purposes of this discussion, let's assume that the tariffs stay for the remainder of the Trump presidency, and countries retaliate with *actual* reciprocal tariffs to the level the US has levied against all countries.

Which, if any, of the following do you see as potential "penalties" foreign countries may try to impose on the US, obviously interested in other restrictions int'l companies could impose? How aggressive do you think international countries will be in retaliating against entertainment companies based in the US?

• Reduction/complete elimination of commonly available subsidies for productions by American film companies
• Making films produced by American production companies pay more than other countries' film companies to film/produce countries in their countries
• Restrictions on American film companies doing press tours for films in int'l countries
• Restriction/outright ban on American productions filming in countries
• The most extreme action of all: Banning release of films produced by American companies globally

I'd imagine what's most likely to do the most damage is just international consumers' appetite for films from American production/distribution companies, or potentially, films featuring American actors as the pain of the actions taken by Trump continues to permeate the economies of foreign countries in a multitude of ways.

Also, do you somehow see the tariffs leading to more productions occurring in the US instead of overseas?