Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides Films classified 12A contain material that is not generally suitable for children aged under 12. No one younger than 12 may see a 12A film in a cinema unless accompanied by an adult. Adults planning to take a child under 12 to view a 12A film should consider whether the film is suitable for that child. To help them decide, we recommend that they check the Ratings info for that film in advance.

BBFC

On the Uk box office this week we have the latest X-Men film taking over at the top on its debut week of release ending Captain America's 3 week run.

£7.3 million was enough to see X-Men Apocalypse reach the top of the chart, this is fairly average for an X-Men movie although it is lower than the previous entry X-Men Days of Future Past.

Interesingly the Wolverine movies have fared the same for debut grosses meaning that the average gross of a X-Men universe movie is in the £6 million region.

Last weeks top film Captain America: Civil War falls from the top quite hard to number 4 with a weekend take of £1.3 million bringing its total to £34 million.

Highest total Grossing movie on the box office this week is The Jungle Book at number 3 with £41 million.

Historical charts

A year ago
Pitch Perfect 2 was still at the top of the list while the highest new film was at number 3, Tomorrowland.

Five years ago
Pirates of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, the fourth in the series, made its debut at the top while the previous weeks top film, Thor, fell to number 3.

Ten years ago
Tom Hanks starred in the adaptation of The Da Vinci Code which made its debut at number 1 knocking Mission:Impossible III to number 2.

Fifteen years ago
The Mummy Returns was the new film at the top knocking Bridget Jones's Diary down to the number 2 spot.

Twenty years ago
Toy Story made its way back to the top of the charts while Money Train was the highest new film of the week.

Twenty five years ago
Misery stayed at the top of the box office for a second week while L.A. Story starring Steve Martin was the highest new film.

This week Sacha Baron Cohen tops the UK box office with his latest satirical comedy The Dictator on it's opening weekend, making it the top film and highest new film. With a weekend take of £4,963,745 it was easily the highest grossing film of the weekend.

Falling a single place to 2 the power house movie Avengers Assemble (UK title). A magnificent 4 week run has given the film a total gross of £44,983,702 making it the 27th top grossing film in the UK after last year The Inbetweeners Movie and 2005's The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.

This time last year Pirates of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, the fourth film in the series, topped the UK box office with £11,634,860.

Five years ago Spider-Man 3 was still riding the top of the tree while Zodiac was the highest new film at 3 with £818,369.

And ten year ago Star Wars Episode II: Attack of The Clones was the top film on it's debut weekend with £11,386,209.

Sales of films and TV show on a physical disk declined by 7.2% in 2011 while sales of digital media downloads rose by 12%. Despite this Blu-ray is growing with it now accounting for 18% of the market.

Rental sales for downloads are expected to get stronger and stronger as the video shop of the ‘90's continues to become a relic. The saviors for DVD/Blu-ray is the triple play disk set allowing for the consumer to have the Blu-ray, DVD and digital for mobile devices version of a film.

Despite this downturn in sales December saw a big increase in sales and accounted for nearly 25% of the yearly sales of physical disks, and Blu-ray saw a year on year increase of nearly 27%.

British films saw an incredible year for sales with the last 2 chapters of the Harry Potter series by far outselling everything else. The Kings Speech, The Inbetweeners and Paul also did very well with British talent attached. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides was also a big seller, it was made in Britain.

Despite the recession the home video market, which includes physical and digital media was worth £2,251 billion in 2011.

Here is the top 10 films and TV sales of 2011

1. Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows – Part 2
2. Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows – Part 1
3. The Inbetweeners
4. The King's Speech
5. Pirates Of The Caribbean - On Stranger Tides
6. Despicable Me
7. Paul
8. Tangled
9. Peter Kay - Live - The Tour That Didn't Tour
10. Transformers - Dark Of The Moon

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 simply did big business across the world in 2011 taking an incredible $1,327,655,619 in world wide box office takings.

The final instalment of the Harry Potter franchise made sure that no other franchise will come close to it for a while and it was the only film in the saga to break the billion pound mark in world grosses, although the 3D tax will have helped.

Coming in a healthy second is Transformers: Dark of the Moon which took $1,114,558,779, this is also the highest grossing film it's series, although to date there are only 3, more will follow. With Transformers taking over a billion it completed a top 10 of world box office films with over a billion.

Also worth a mention are Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides with just over a billion dollars, Kung Fu Panda with $659,230,261 and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 with $648,079,401.

It was not a great year for film at the box office this year despite the high taking of 3 films, they were exceptions. Next year is a good year for films and could well see box office takings increase with the likes of Batman, Spider-Man and The Hobbit.

The final instalment of Harry Potter saw the boy wizard go out with a bang, and it became the most successful film of the franchise in the process, and for 2011 it is the highest grossing film at the UK box office.

During its 10 week run it raked up £73,094,187 in UK box office takings, at todays cinema ticket prices that is about 13.5 million tickets making it the 30th top film in the UK by ticker sales. Other film to do well in 2011 were The kings Speech with £45.3 milion, The Inbetweeners with £45 million, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides with £32.9 million and The Hangover Part II with £32.7 million.

In all a good year for British films (is Harry Potter a British film?) with Blockbusters not doing so well, Breaking Dawn and Transformers Dark of the Moon performed well enough but they were big budget blockbusters and had higher expectations.

I think the winner of the year was The Inbetweeners Movie that performed well abouve expectations, made back its budget and secured a sequel in the process, al that for a little Channel 4 show about bad mouthed undersexed teens.