The winner: Coco

With a debut of £3.36m, or £5.21m including previews, Coco has delivered the biggest UK opening for either of Disney’s animation studios since Finding Dory in summer 2016. Since that date, Walt Disney Animation has released Moana, which began with £2.21m, finally hauling itself to a decent £20.4m total, and Pixar has brought out Cars 3, the lowest-grossing movie in the UK for the studio, with a final tally of £11.7m.

Coco’s box office is about even with the debut of DreamWorks Animation’s Trolls, which began in October 2016 with £3.01m or £5.44m including previews, and ended up – after a strong, sustained run – with £24.9m. Coco – produced by Pixar and distributed by Disney – has already grossed $657m (£471m) worldwide, including $201m in North America, so the pressure will be on Disney for it to earn at least £20m in the UK.

The runner-up: Darkest Hour

After the strong opening of £4.06m for Darkest Hour, Universal Studios should be happy with a decline of only 18% in the Churchill drama’s second session, and a weekend gross of £3.30m. Its total after 10 days is a healthy £10.16m. Darkest Hour also performed strongly over the Monday to Thursday period last week, grossing £2.80m. It’s unsurprising to see a second world war period drama, with presumed appeal to older audiences, doing well on weekdays.

Although January 2018 lacks an Oscar movie like 2017’s La La Land, cinema bookers are celebrating the fact that Darkest Hour and Fox Searchlight’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri are shaping up to be collectively equivalent. Indeed, the films’ combined box office after 10 days is £15.39m, which compares with £14.91m for La La Land at the same stage of release. With £5.23m, Three Billboards has already overtaken the total of director Martin McDonagh’s previous biggest UK hit, In Bruges.

Fresh awards bait: The Post

Given the success of both Darkest Hour and Three Billboards, distributor eOne potentially faced a tough challenge launching its drama The Post. One strong asset is its trio of marquee names – stars Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks and director Steven Spielberg – but the storyline, concerning the Washington Post’s dilemma over a set of secret US government papers about the Vietnam war, wasn’t necessarily a slam-dunk with British audiences.

The Post’s UK debut of £2.15m compares favourably with the opening salvo for Bridge of Spies in 2015 – which likewise combined Spielberg and Hanks, and began with £1.68m including £206,000 in previews.

The sustained successes: The Greatest Showman and Jumanji

Dropping a mere 2% from the previous weekend (and this despite a 10% reduction in the number of cinemas playing it), The Greatest Showman had the smallest decline of any film on the chart, and has now reached a healthy £16.9m. The Hugh Jackman musical has seen successive falls of just 6%, 11% and now 2%.

Meanwhile, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle fell by a relatively slender 25% from the previous session, and has now reached a stunning £32.5m total. The Jumanji reboot thus becomes the 11th release from 2017 to crack £30m and now ranks seventh among last year’s releases.

The market

No fewer than eight titles grossed £1m in UK cinemas at the weekend: Coco, Darkest Hour, The Post, The Greatest Showman, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Three Billboards, The Commuter and Insidious: The Last Key. While January is traditionally when a variety of different titles perform well – unlike, say, early summer when the latest blockbuster tends to dominate – it is exceptional to see eight films achieve more than £1m. The last time it happened was the first weekend of 2015. The success of these films has helped power the market overall to a 49% uptick on the equivalent weekend in 2017, when La La Land continued in the top spot and Split, xXx: The Return of Xander Cage and Lion were the big new releases. Cinema bookers are now looking to the forthcoming weekend’s crop of releases – including Aardman Animations’ Early Man, YA franchise concluder Maze Runner: The Death Cure, Alexander Payne’s Downsizing and Afghanistan war movie 12 Strong – to help replenish the market.

Top 10 films, 19-21 January

1. Coco, £5,209,214 from 575 sites (new)

2. Darkest Hour, £3,295,717 from 631 sites. Total: £10,155,287 (two weeks)

3. The Post, £2,152,977 from 551 sites (new)

4. The Greatest Showman, £2,103,605 from 548 sites. Total: £16,865,309 (three weeks)

5. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, £1,840,248 from 541 sites. Total: £32,478,009 (five weeks)

6. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, £1,621,878 from 521 sites. Total: £5,232,135 (two weeks)

7. The Commuter, £1,602,680 from 472 sites (new)

8. Insidious: The Last Key, £1,025,740 from 414 sites. Total: £3,663,623 (two weeks)

9. Star Wars: The Last Jedi, £861,320 from 452 sites. Total: £81,447,605 (six weeks)

10. Pitch Perfect 3, £374,486 from 346 sites. Total: £14,883,218 (five weeks)

Other openers

Bolshoi Ballet: Romeo and Juliet, £181,834 from 144 sites

The Final Year, £37,318 (including £18,888 previews) from 11 sites

Attraction, £10,203 (including £4,493 previews) from 59 sites

Chamak, £5,071 from 11 sites

Lover for a Day, £3,648 from four sites

Diwanjimoola Grand Prix, £2,744 from 22 sites

• Thanks to comScore. All figures relate to takings in UK and Ireland cinemas.