Despite a crowded weekend of releases at the box office when the figures came in it was clear that there was a big winner and the Disney Hype machine had worked yet again.

Angelina Jolie takes her first big budget role in a number of years in Maleficent and with ease becomes the biggest film of the week with a £6.6 million take.

Disney are on a roll, it looks like Maleficent will be a sizeable hit and their last film, Frozen, has become one of the biggest film of all time taking over $1 Billion world wide.

After a single week at the top X-Men Days of Future Past drops a single place to the runner up spot with £3.5 million for the weekend and £19.5 million in total.

Also released this week and charted were - Edge of Tomorrow - A Million Ways to Die In The West - Jimmys Hall

A year ago there was little move at the box office as The Hangover Part III held on for a second week and the highest new film was The Purge starring Ethan Hawke at number 6.

Five years ago Night at the Museum 2 held on for another week keeping Drag Me To Hell from Sam Raimi to debut at 2.

Ten years ago The Day After Tomorrow debuted strong at the top of the box office leaving Troy to fall down to number 2.

Fifteen years ago Notting climbed up to the top after a number 6 debut from a limited release knocking She's All That to the number 2 spot.

For many fans The Lord of the Rings is the greatest trilogy of films ever and when Peter Jackson announced that we would not direct the prequel, The Hobbit, the fan based moaned, then he announced that Guillermo del Toro would be directing and the fans cheered, then the series lost del Toro and the fans are sad again.

What's happened? It seems because of the legal problems with the rights to the film with MGM and Warner it's taken so long to get the ball rolling on the film del Toro has simply run out of time and had to leave.

Jackson and his staff are naturally all on board still and fighting to get the film made but the loss of the director is a massive blow, del Toro's films like Hellboy and Pans Labyrinth have proved that the director is more than capable of handling the film and in actual fact would have given the production the perfect style to accompany Jacksons originals.

Where will the films go now? Who knows, Sam Rami has been connected, will be interesting to see where it goes with him, Spidey trilogy shows he can miss on occasions but Evil Dead and Drag Me to Hell can show he has style, but maybe, just maybe Jackson will take the helm himself.

This is a big blow for the production and puts things on rocky ground; del Toro will still help with the script, which is something. Let hope a director can be found who can deliver, Neill Blomkamp anyone?