Kong: Skull Island defeats U.K. box office competition

Kong: Skull Island shot to the top of the U.K. box office chart during its opening weekend (10-12Mar17).
The monster monkey movie, which stars Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson and Samuel L. Jackson, surpassed expectations to take $61 million (£50 million) and dethrone the latest Wolverine outing Logan in the U.S., and it managed the same feat across the Atlantic.
In the U.K., the reimagining of the giant ape story took $7.5 million (£6.2 million), easily overtaking Logan to become the nation’s box office winner at the weekend.
“We couldn’t be more thrilled with the film’s incredible debut,” Warner Bros’ Josh Berger, President and Managing Director, UK & Ireland, said in a statement. “Director Jordan Vogt-Roberts and his extraordinary cast and filmmaking team have delivered the crowd-pleasing monster movie that promises to roar well into the season.”
Logan came in second with $4.6 million (£3.8 million) while The Lego Batman Movie slipped to third with $971,000 (£800,000), Viceroy’s House dropped to fourth with $607,000 (£500,000), while the 2017 Best Picture Oscar winner Moonlight remained in fifth with $486,000 (£400,000).