Seville-set teendrama 7 Virgins ousted runaway localhit Torrente 3: The Protectorin a surprise upset at the Spanish box office over the weekend.

7 Virgins (7 Virgenes) earned Euros 746,039 from just under148,000 admissions on its second weekend, beating Torrente 3's Euros 727,070 from nearly 143,000admissions.

It is highly unusualfor atitle to rocket from fifth to first position on its second weekendout, as director Alberto Rodriguez's 7Virgins did, according to Nielsen EDI figures. The weekend's returns in Spain were also noteworthy in how tight the competitionwas: the top seven films were all seen by more than 100,000 people.

Perhaps mostsurprisingly, 7 Virgins, a Euros1.85m co-production between Tesela Films and La Zanfona, is playing on 180 prints through arthouse distributor Alta Films - a healthy number for alocal film but less than half that of Torrente 3's 422prints through UIP.

But the film,which picked up a best actor award at last month's Donostia-SanSebastian International Film Festival for youngster Juan Jose Ballesta - who was key to 7 Virgins' appeal for younger audiences not usually drawn toSpanish cinema - was actually just maintaining itspace. It boasted the highest per-screen average on the top 20 chart on itsopening weekend, and its Euros 4,191 per-screen average this weekend was beatem only by new release The Secret Life Of Words from local director Isabel Coixet,which ranked eighth overall.

"The box office results should only helpattract buyer interest internationally," said Simon de Santiago, director ofproduction and international at Sogepaq, which isselling 7 Virgins and will screen thefilm at the AFM. "This is a high quality arthousefilm that shows off a director to watch and portrays a part of Spain not usually seen in the movies."

Ticket sales on Torrente 3, the third in a hit comedy series fromwriter-director-star Santiago Segura, have dropped dramatically since opening onSeptember 30 on a massive 465 copies. Admissions were down by almost half thisweekend, its fourth weekend out, following a 62% drop last weekend. Still, thefilm is by far the highest grossing Spanish title of the year, with more thanEuros 17m earned to date.