Box Office Roundup

This week, to nobody's surprise, Sacha Baron Cohen's BRUNO ruled the box office. Although a smaller opening weekend number than BORAT (£5M vs £6.4M) it's a magnificent number for an 18 certificate film. Universal are releasing a 15 certificate version, allowing its prime audience, teenagers, to see the film in cinemas. That should guarantee a huge final number for the movie.

As I have mentioned before, the landscape is looking rough for arthouse, with no clear crossover hit. When COCO BEFORE CHANEL opens 31 July, distributors Optimum Releasing are hoping to reverse this trend. They certainly have a good track record at turning foreign languge titles into hits.

Here's the UK top 10:
1. Bruno, 456 sites, £5,000,229 (New)
2. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, 522 sites, £4,750,720. Total: £15,421,531
3. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, 469 sites, £1,449,282. Total: £23,580,163
4. The Hangover, 402 sites, £1,228,918. Total: £16,493,961
5. Public Enemies, 455 sites, £1,048,359. Total: 4,609,567
6. My Sister's Keeper, 351 sites, £675,948. Total: £4,075,837
7. Year One, 299 sites, £242,950. Total: £2,637,356
8. Night at the Museum 2, 283 sites, £106,420. Total: £19,475,421
9. Kambakkht Ishq, 52 sites, £104,849. Total: 551,294
10. Shortkut, 34 sites, £80,488 (New)

Thanks to Charles Gant at The Guardian for the numbers and analysis.