
UK indie drama scores best in key London sites.
For most of this year, the film release calendar had Dune: Part Two slotted in as the major release for the first weekend of November. However, Warner Bros’ decision to delay Denis Villeneuve’s highly anticipated film to 2024 created a gap in the calendar – providing opportunities for smaller and medium-sized new releases.
MUBI’s How to Have Sex was already dated for November 3 UK release before Warner Bros announced the decision to move Dune: Part Two, and may have reached wider play as a consequence. The Film4 and BFI Filmmaking Fund-backed drama has debuted with a decent £102,000 from 150 sites, and £134,000 including previews. Writer-director Molly Manning Walker’s debut feature stars Mia McKenna-Bruce as a teenager enjoying a hedonistic summer holiday in Malia, Crete with her two best friends.

While How to Have Sex landed in 12th place in Comscore’s full UK and Ireland box office chart, the film did much better at boutique and independent cinemas – at least according to our own sample of 53 venues. How to Have Sex landed in second place in our Indie Cinemas chart (behind reigning chart champ Killers of the Flower Moon) as the highest new entry, with exactly 4,000 admissions from the 30 participating sites that played it.
Editor in Chief of Ikon London Magazine, journalist, film producer and founder of The DAFTA Film Awards (The DAFTAs).