Crime pays: DC's Suicide Squad tops UK box office with £11.25m

Despite the disapproval of critics, the supervillain film had the third biggest opening of the year, and dwarfed the takings of the other films in the UK chart

Squad goals: Margot Robbie and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje in the No 1 film at the UK box office. Photograph: Allstar/Warner Bros

Critics may have been largely unimpressed, but Suicide Squad defied sunny skies to deliver a robust UK opening of £11.25m from 573 cinemas. The film’s most apt comparison is probably Guardians of the Galaxy, because both comic-book properties were little known to broad audiences until their respective owners, Warner/DC and Disney/Marvel, announced movie adaptations. Guardians of the Galaxy began two years ago with £6.36m, including £1.37m in previews.

Another comparison for Suicide Squad might be Deadpool, which was also given a 15 certificate in the UK. Deadpool debuted in February with £13.73m, including £3.76m in previews. Strip out the previews and Suicide Squad has the bigger opening number.

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The winner: Suicide Squad

Critics may have been largely unimpressed, but Suicide Squad defied sunny skies to deliver a robust UK opening of £11.25m from 573 cinemas. The film’s most apt comparison is probably Guardians of the Galaxy, because both comic-book properties were little known to broad audiences until their respective owners, Warner/DC and Disney/Marvel, announced movie adaptations. Guardians of the Galaxy began two years ago with £6.36m, including £1.37m in previews.

Another comparison for Suicide Squad might be Deadpool, which was also given a 15 certificate in the UK. Deadpool debuted in February with £13.73m, including £3.76m in previews. Strip out the previews and Suicide Squad has the bigger opening number.

In fact, discounting previews, Suicide Squad has delivered the third-biggest UK opening of the year, behind Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (£14.62m) and Captain America: Civil War (£14.47m). In August 2015, no new release opened bigger than £3m.

There is a big disparity between critical and fan appreciation of Suicide Squad, which has a 40/100 score at Metacritic and a 7.0/10 user rating at IMDb. At Rotten Tomatoes, the critics’ rating is 26%, which compares with an audience score of 72%.

The runner-up: Finding Dory

In term time, family films earn the vast majority of their takings on Saturday and Sunday, and showtimes typically reduce on weekdays. In the school holidays it’s a different story, with every day of the week a potential opportunity for a cinema trip. A case in point is Finding Dory, which debuted a week ago with £8.12m and added another £3.98m at the weekend. The film’s cumulative total is £20.25m, which means it grossed £8.15m during the Monday-to-Thursday period. Over its first 10 days, the daily average gross is an impressive £2.03m.

Among Pixar films, only Toy Story 3 reached £20m at a quicker pace. In fact, Finding Dory has already exceeded the lifetime grosses of the three Pixar titles (Cars, Cars 2 and The Good Dinosaur), and is closing in on Brave (£22.2m), WALL-E (£22.9m) and Ratatouille (£24.8m).

Universal/Illumination’s The Secret Life of Pets remains the biggest-grossing animated film of 2016 so far, with £32.1m. That film had reached £16.62m after two weekends of play, so Finding Dory is currently 22% ahead of the pace set by its rival.

The BFG is also performing well on weekdays, adding £5.73m over the last seven days, for a 17-day total of £20.21m. After the US, the UK is by far the most successful market for The BFG, with Australia in third place.