Paper Towns builds a flimsy number 1 position at the UK box office

The coming-of-age drama benefits from extensive previews to claim pole position, while the summer as a whole sees a monster win for Jurassic World

For the second week in a row, Inside Out has been denied the top spot by an official chart champ boosting its “weekend” tally with hefty previews. A week ago it was Pixels that elbowed aside the Pixar hit, thanks to four extra days of takings. Now it’s the turn of Paper Towns, boosting the £744,000 it earned over the Friday-to-Sunday period with an additional £1.33m grossed on Monday to Thursday last week. Without that extra box office, Paper Towns would have landed in sixth place, behind Inside Out, Sinister 2, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, The Man from UNCLE and Pixels. But with official takings of £2.07m, Paper Towns nabs the top spot. The chart win may not be deserved, but distributor Fox nevertheless has just cause to celebrate the film’s box office so far. In the US, after five weeks on release, Paper Towns has earned $31m, and has now run out of puff. An equivalent UK result, by rule of thumb, is £3.1m. Fox UK has already achieved over £2m after just seven days of play, and should sail past that £3.1m target.

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