UK box office passes £1 billion in the fastest time ever

Despite the frequent talk of suffering cinemas, the UK box office has managed to hit £1 billion quicker than ever before.

2016 saw the £1 billion mark reached for this year on October 8, according to newly released data from stats analysis company comScore.

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That’s after 281 days, a full 17 days quicker than the UK box office took to reach the same figure in 2015.

Put into some context, in 2009, it took the box office nearly the whole year – 352 days – to reach the same amount.

The figure arrives too despite a host of flops this summer, both in terms of the box office and at the hands of the critics.

And it’s mostly thanks to a rip-roaring 2016 from Disney.

The Mouse House has been responsible for the three top grossing UK movies this year; ‘The Jungle Book’, ‘Finding Dory’, which has just passed $1 billion worldwide, and ‘Captain America: Civil War’.

Combined, the movies made £156.6 million for the UK, while elsewhere ‘Bridget Jones’s Baby’ made an extraordinarily healthy £33 million, and ‘Absolutely Fabulous’, nearly £17 million.

There are still more potential box office smashes to come too, with ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them’ and ‘Rogue One: A Star Wars Story’ due out before the end of the year.