In an exclusive digital presentation at just two cinemas in the UK, Buena Vista International's (BVI) Finding Nemo has platformed to stunning figures in the territory.

The Pixar Animation Studios' title, which is already the highest grossing animated film of all time in North America, launched at London's Odeon Leicester Square and Manchester's UCI Filmworks for a $254,655 (£152,793) gross over the three-day weekend (Oct 3-5).

The $226,072 (£135,643) taken at the Odeon Leicester Square compares very favourably with the $249,340 (£149,604) taken by BVI when it platformed Toy Story 2 in February 2000 a week before its nationwide release. Toy Story 2 had both franchise recognition and the unique factor that it was the first digital presentation shown at the Odeon Leicester Square, which boasts the biggest auditorium in the country housing nearly 2,000 seats.

Pixar's Monsters, Inc. claimed $148,678 (£89,207) over its first weekend at the Odeon in a digital format, however this was not a platform, opening the same day as the rest of the country. Finding Nemo will play for four weeks at the Odeon.

Meanwhile the country's only other digital screen, at the UCI Filmworks Manchester, set a three-day house record for the cinema's digital screen with a take of $28,583 (£17,150). All shows for Nemo on Saturday and Sunday were sold out for the 371 seat auditorium with the Pixar film becoming the highest grossing digital film ever to screen at the cinema - beating such films as Star Wars: Episode II - Attack Of The Clones.

Finding Nemo is released wide across the UK and Ireland on Friday (Oct 10). BVI will put it out on 950 prints, the distributor's widest ever UK/Ireland release.