20th Century Fox had good cause to celebrate this week as two of its films, Planet Of The Apes and Moulin Rouge took control of the international box office.

Openings in several major territories including a hugely successful launch in France, helped Tim Burton's re-imagining of the 1968 sci-fi classic pass the $100m mark internationally. Apes sold a massive 1.4m tickets over the weekend in France and went on to sell 1.7m in its first full week. This makes it the most successful opening weekend for a US film in the territory so far this year, easily beating summer competitors including Jurassic Park III's 0.74m admissions and Pearl Harbor (0.72m).

It also gives Fox its third biggest opening of all time in France, after Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace and Independence Day. The simian epic also saw strong openings in The Netherlands and Denmark, taking the top spots in both. The film, which stars Mark Wahlberg, Tim Roth and Helena Bonham Carter, grossed $398,936 from 100 screens in its first four days in The Netherlands and $361,747 at 60 screens for three-days in Denmark.

Apes also opened in Switzerland to $154,857 taking third place behind current leader The Mexican and fellow opener Bridget Jones's Diary. The blockbuster continued to hold the number spot in the UK in its second week, adding $3.4m over the three-day weekend to bring its current UK gross to $15.4m after 10-days on release.

Also performing well for the distributor was Baz Luhrmann's audacious musical Moulin Rouge. The film, which headlines Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor, proved it can-can in Latin America with impressive openings in Brazil and Mexico. Moulin Rouge claimed the top spot in Brazil with an opening weekend take of $424,420 from 142 screens. Furthermore, it managed $661,287 from 186 screens in Mexico, $240,211 from just 35 screens in Argentina, $105,859 from 25 Venezuelan venues, $66,279 also on 25 in Colombia and $45,371 from 17 in Peru.

The film has taken over $21.5m so far internationally from just 15 territories.

Columbia TriStar also had cause to celebrate with strong openings for Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within in Germany, Spain and Italy, taking the top position in all three. The German opening dismissed strong competition from Bridget Jones's Diary, taking $2.5m from 616 screens in its first four-days. Three-day grosses in Italy and Spain were just as impressive with $0.8m in Italy and a resounding $1.5m from 249 screens, a mighty $6,000 screen average, in Spain. The computer-animated film has already taken over $19m internationally.