Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy goes straight to streaming in the US – but easily defeats Captain America: Brave New World in UK cinemas.
An interesting box office tussle took place at the UK box office this weekend just gone, as two franchises duked it out for the top spot. Appreciating the headline to this article has given the ending away, it was a case of the fourth Bridget Jones film going up against the 35th Marvel Cinematic Universe movie, Captain America: Brave New World.
In the end, it wasn’t even close either.
Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy stormed to the number one spot, with an opening weekend in the UK of £10.2m. That’s the biggest opening for a romantic comedy since Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason over 20 years ago.
Marvel’s latest juggernaut meanwhile, Captain America: Brave New World, had to content itself with £6.4m over the weekend, hardly a shabby number, but comfortably in second place. It’s less than half the take of the opening of the previous film in the Captain America films, Captain America: Civil War, although that feature had less competition, and was building up to the end of the Infinity saga of Marvel films.
What’s particularly remarkable about this is that Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy isn’t even warranting a cinema release in the US, instead debuting straight to the Peacock streaming service at the same time it landed in UK cinemas. Marvel earned its 35th consecutive number one opening in the States for its new film, where the competition was a lot clearer.
The expectation now is that Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy will go on to become the highest grossing film in that particular series of movies, and even though it was talked about as the last Bridget movie, there’s likely a meeting or two taking place.
Captain America: Brave New World will find its audience in the UK of course, and Marvel film have a habit of attracting large numbers irrespective of initial response. Still, a remarkable box office story here, the moral of the tale being don’t mess with Bridget…
