KINGSMAN and SHADES lead box office

16 Feb 2015

Singapore - Restricted movies KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE (M18) and FIFTY SHADES OF GREY (R21) lead the box office this past weekend. KINGSMAN opened on 58 screens (including IMAX) and grossed US$985K. FIFTY SHADES is reported to have grossed US$664,819 (S$901,156) from 25 screens - a record for a R21 rated title over opening weekend (in terms of gross and number of screens).

Other debuts include black comedy THE VOICES (NC16) on 9 screens and the edited submarine thriller BLACK SEA (NC16) on 13.

DRAGON BLADE 天将雄狮 (PG13, edited) starring Jackie Chan gets a CNY head start with sneaks over the weekend. The film will sneak again on Chinese New Year's Eve with five other festive pics before opening next week.

BLACK SEA is the fourth film this year to suffer edits due to the categorisation of "Jesus f**" or similar phrases as "language that denigrates religion or is religiously profane".

DRAGON BLADE is the second film of 2015 to be edited in order to get a lower rating.

Box Office (13 - 16 Feb)

1 (-) Kingsman: The Secret Service (M18)
2 (-) Fifty Shades of Grey (R21)
3 (1) Jupiter Ascending (PG13)
4 (-) Dragon Blade 天将雄狮 (PG13) Edited
5 (6) I Fine... Thank You... Love You (PG13)

6 (2) Unbroken (PG)
7 (4) The Imitation Game (NC16)
8 (3) American Sniper (M18)

9 (-) Black Sea (NC16) Edited
10 (8) Strange Magic (G)

Notes: 

(1) Sneak previews don't usually get listed in the top ten list published in the Straits Times Life! (Source: Motion Picture Distributors Association Singapore). It's listed this time, so I'll just follow.  

(2) For the past few weeks, I estimated the number of screens based on information gathered from exhibitors' websites. What I do is I pick a date (Fri, Sat or Sun), and count every single hall that screens the film (even if that hall only has one screening that day). This week, I'm able to compare my count against that which is reported publicly. And I'm way off. I counted 83 screens for KINGSMAN (vs. 58 from an online source). I came up with 45 screens for FIFTY SHADES (vs. 25 as reported). So I decided to do a recount based on the number of sessions at any one time. And I still came up over with 32. In the absence of regular official reports, I can only make guesses with whatever information is publicly out there.