Weekend box office – 12th to 19th of January 2014 – will 12 Years be the Lone Survivor or will it get (American) Hustled?

Oscar season is in full swing and that’s had an effect on the box office. Some of the blockbuster action movies try to launch this time of year, hoping to lure the more mainstream watchers to the cinema, but they usually get swamped. New star lacking but $70 million adventure Hercules: The Legend Begins is no different with Oscar tipped 12 Years a Slave, The Wolf of Wall Street and American Hustle plus harrowing action film Lone Survivor dominating.

US

1. Lone Survivor – Director: Peter Berg – $37.8 million
2. Frozen – Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee – $14.7 million
3. The Legend of Hercules – Renny Harlin – $8.9 million
4. The Wolf of Wall Street – Martin Scorsese – $8.8 million
5. American Hustle – David O’Russell – $8.3 million

UK

1. 12 Years a Slave – Steve McQueen – £2.5 million
2. American Hustle – David O’Russell – £1.9 million
3. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug – Peter Jackson – £1.5 million
4. Frozen – Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee – £1.3 million
5. Last Vegas – Jon Turteltaub – £1.3 million

A disappointing 2/5 in both US and UK takes my running total to 60/110. Delivery Man made a very underwhelming seventh place entry in the UK while brand new The Railway Man debuted at sixth. The Hobbit 2 has definitely proved it’s got more legs, and perhaps more of a fanbase, in the UK than in the US as it’s stayed at three while, in America, it sank to sixth.

US

1. Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit – Kenneth Branagh
2. Lone Survivor – Peter Berg
3. The Nut Job – Peter Lepeniotis
4. Ride Along – Tim Story
5. The Wolf of Wall Street – Martin Scorsese

UK

1. The Wolf of Wall Street – Martin Scorsese
2. 12 Years a Slave – Steve McQueen
3. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug – Peter Jackson
4. American Hustle – David O’Russell
5. Frozen – Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee

The UK seems to be a bit more award season giddy than the US at the moment so I bet Scorsese’s star studded Wolf of Wall Street will enter at the top. Branagh’s new Jack Ryan should hopefully prove to be a better success than the flop of Hercules.

Benedict Cumberbatch and Chiwetel Ejiofor in 12 Years a Slave, this week’s UK box office number one.

Taylor Kitsch, Mark Wahlberg, Ben Foster and Emile Hirsch in Lone Survivor, this week’s US box office number one.