Audacious Australian musical Moulin Rouge reclaimed the top of the UK chart this week from two-week champ A.I. Artificial Intelligence. Now in its fifth week on release Baz Luhrmann's film dropped off just 20% from its previous weekend, its largest fall so far, taking a three-day gross of $1.6m (£1.1m) from 397 sites. The film has already amassed $18.4m (£12.5m) at the UK box office and looks to keep going strong for some time although its ability to retain the top spot will no doubt be compromised by the release of UIP's American Pie 2 on Friday and Julia Roberts/John Cusack comedy America's Sweethearts on October 19. In comparison A.I. fell 41% in its third weekend, grossing $1.4m (£920,267) from 436 sites, with total gross standing at $9.4m (£6.4m).
Also swapping places from last week were UK productions Enigma and Mike Bassett: England Manager. The strong reception for Entertainment's Mike Bassett last weekend was slightly diminished in its second weekend as the soccer comedy dropped 30% to record a three-day figure of $865,867 from 265 sites for fourth place. Meanwhile Enigma, which took the third position held by Bassett last week, held strong, taking $1.04m from 276 sites, a drop of just 11%.
Three openers made the top fifteen this week with Momentum Pictures' Amelie taking on all comers and claiming fifth position with $827,091 from just 82 venues. The romantic comedy goes wider onto 98 screens from this Friday. Pulling up at number 10 was Warner Bros' Driven. The latest collaboration between Sylvester Stallone and director Renny Harlin, having previously worked together on 1993's Cliffhanger, managed $213,261 from 188 sites. Also opening, and taking 13th position, was 20th Century Fox's Original Sin. The thriller was unable to match the box office performance of star Angelina Jolie's previous big screen outing, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, taking a poor $142,510 from 155 sites.
Still generating impressing numbers at number nine was Warner Bros' Cats & Dogs. With a total gross of $32.2m to date it passed Hannibal at the weekend to become the third highest grossing film of the year so far in the UK, behind Bridget Jones's Diary ($61.9m) and Shrek ($41.9m). All three are still on release.
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