March box office jumps 41% as Project Hail Mary drives strong end to Q1
The UK and Ireland March box office totalled £72.2m, a 41% year-on-year increase compared to a relatively weak comparable the same month last year.
A quarter through 2026 and box office revenues are tracking 8% ahead of 2025, already surpassing £265m for one of the strongest starts since the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to Tom Linay, business content director at Digital Cinema Media (DCM), the UK’s largest cinema ad sales house, cinema admissions were also up an estimated 45% compared to March 2025. Official March admissions figures are released later in the month.
Overall admissions for Q1 were up an estimated 7% year-on-year. DCM had forecast admissions would grow overall in 2026, but that growth was expected to be driven primarily by a string of blockbusters slated for Q2 and Q3. The outperformance in Q1 suggests stronger demand for cinemagoing, which bodes well for full-year results.
Linay told The Media Leader that DCM’s own revenue was up 7% year on year in Q1, driven by a strong film slate that included Wuthering Heights, The Housemaid, Hamnet and the top-grossing film in March, Project Hail Mary.
“Project Hail Mary is the one,” said Linay. “It’s caught something.” The sci-fi flick grossed £18.4m in the final two weeks of March.
According to Linay, the title earned as many admissions in its second week as it did in its first, an exceedingly rare accomplishment that suggests strong word-of-mouth praise and interest from audiences of all ages.
The excitement over NASA’s Artemis II launch and a renewed interest in space travel are also likely to have knock-on benefits for the film, an adaptation of Andy Weir’s 2021 science-fiction novel.
For Linay, Project Hail Mary has successfully tapped into consumers’ emotional needs, offering a hopeful, positive story of people from different backgrounds coming together to solve a big problem. “People want a bit of escapism and positivity,” he said.
Rounding out the month of March was Pixar’s latest film Hoppers (£11.9m), Enid Blyton adaptation The Magic Faraway Tree (£5.5m) and the latest Colleen Hoover adaptation Reminders of Him (£3.8m).
February holdovers Wuthering Heights and Scream 7 also added a decent £3.1m and £2.9m, respectively, during the month.
Meanwhile, Dhurandhar: The Revenge cracked the month’s top five with £3.7m, including the largest-ever opening for an Indian film in the UK.
April preview: Not a pipe dream
April kicked off with the release of the much-anticipated family film The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, which is expected to be “as popular as the first one” despite a relatively poor critical reception, according to Linay.
Importantly, for cinemagoers with “appetites for something different,” A24’s The Drama and the Aaron Taylor-Johnson-led action film Fuze were released on 3 April.
Later this month, musical biopic Michael, originally slated for release last autumn, finally debuts on the 22nd.
The ever-popular Bridget Jones’s Diary will also receive a 25th-anniversary re-release on the 17th, the same day horror fans will see Lee Cronin’s The Mummy.
