by Sequels and spin-offs made up nine of the top 10 films at the UK and Ireland box office last year, figures show.
Top Gun: Maverick and Avatar: The Way of Water led a surge of movies that were either follow-ups to or part of a long-running franchise.
The only independent film to appear in the top 10 is the biopic Elvis, which placed 10th.
The figures, which have been published by the British Film Institute (BFI), show the tight control that franchise films continue to have on the big screen.
A sequel or spin-off has topped the box office chart every year since 2010, with one exception: 2020, when many blockbusters were postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, leaving the way clear for the film epic. World War I 1917 will take first place. place.
Topping the list in 2022 was Top Gun: Maverick, which grossed £83.7m at the UK & Irish box office, enough to make it one of the top 10 films of all time.
In the film, Tom Cruise reprises the role of pilot Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, which he first played 36 years earlier in the original Top Gun in 1986.
The second film Avatar: The Way of Water (£70.9m) was another long-awaited sequel, this time 13 years after the original, but once again using cutting-edge technological effects to mix live action and animation. digital.
Coming in third is Minions: The Rise of Gru (£47.0m), which came out seven years after the first Minions movie.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (£42.2m) is fourth on the list, followed by The Batman (£40.8m), Thor: Love and Thunder (£37.6m). £35.1m), Jurassic World: Dominion (£35.1m), Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (£34.2m) and Sing 2 (£33.0m).
Two of the movies in the top 10 are still in wide release, The Way of Water and Wakanda Forever, so their box office could go even higher.
Last year’s best acting independent film was Belfast, written and directed by Kenneth Branagh, which took in £15.6 million.
All box office data covers receipts up to 29 January 2023 and includes both Ireland and the UK as both are counted as one territory for reporting purposes.
Separate figures from the BFI show that total UK cinema admissions for all films due for release in 2022 came to 117 million.
This is 59% more than in 2021, but 33% lower than the 2019 pre-pandemic total of 176 million.
Factors likely to have affected admissions last year were the record heatwave in the summer and the Queen’s death and funeral in September, the BFI added.
