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OK, so here are the Ten Lowest Opening Weekends at the UK Box Office in 2020*.
*Asterisks and caveats abound this year, obviously. (As we'll see.)
10. SUPERPOWER DOGS (first weekend total: £172) Sure sign that something was wrong this year: an IMAX film about pooches, narrated by the Chris Evans everybody likes, did no business even when cinemas were fully open.
9. ASIA (£156) Finely honed Israeli drama that wound up opening exclusively on Welsh screens as a result of regional lockdown variations. Curzon's excellent Home Cinema platform took up the slack. See also...
8. WHO YOU THINK I AM (£147) ...this high-toned Juliette Binoche romantic drama, recipient of a brief theatrical runout after making its streaming debut during Lockdown #1.
7. SPACESHIP EARTH (£133) Enthralling doc about an early Nineties social experiment that went sadly awry, an apt release for Lockdown #1, even as it got lost in the shuffle. Earlier thoughts: https://bit.ly/3hsUvXQ
6. IMMORTAL HERO (£60) Japanese film industry enters into the faith-movie business. World (or, at least, the UK) stays away.
5. MICHAEL JORDAN: TO THE MAX (£42) The Netflix hit THE LAST DANCE prompted IMAX to reissue this 2000 tribute to the basketballer. Should have been a slam dunk, but not even MJ could space-jam Covid. (Still, imagine the social distancing within an IMAX.)
4. ANTRUM (£20) Ho-hum lo-fi fake-doc about a cursed item billed as "The Deadliest Film Ever Made". Probably not a subtitle anyone really wanted to encounter with all these germs circulating.
3. MOFFIE (£18) Spoiler: this year's top three are all well worth seeking out. This psychologically piercing coming-of-age pic from South African director Oliver Hermanus was maybe too tough to make easy lockdown-era viewing, but gripping all the same.
2. PATRICK (£12) Another sign something was very wrong theatrically: only one, maybe two people paid to see a Belgian nudist-camp mystery that featured, in passing, more boobs and willies than anything else on screens this year. (It's great, nevertheless.)
An earlier hymn to PATRICK (still available to stream via the usual outlets): https://bit.ly/3o0w32I
