Firefly

’Oliver Twist’ tops London’s chart

Roman Polanski’s Oscar-contender is a new entry at number one

This Week Last week Screens 3-day total
1 (-) Oliver Twist 17 £99,836
2 (1) A History of Violence 22 £99,306
3 (2) Pride & Prejudice 19 £75,602
4 (-) Serenity 12 £72,268
5 (-) Kinky Boots 16 £45,979
6 (-) Night Watch 17 £35,664
7 (4) Four Brothers 8 £23,158
8 (3) Howl’s Moving Castle 12 £22,650
9 (6) Crash 13 £13,805
10 (6) The 40 Year-Old Virgin 9 £13,244

London Box Office courtesy Screen International

It was a photo-finish at London’s box office this weekend as Roman Polanski’s take on Dicken’s tale of orphans and pickpockets ’Oliver Twist’ nicked the top spot from ’A History of Violence’.

Both films just fell marginally short of the £100,000 mark, while ’Oliver Twist’ was on five fewer screens than David Cronenberg’s critically lauded thriller.

Keira Knightley’s ’Pride and Prejudice’ continued to pull in crowds holding on to number three with takings of £75,602 despite strong competition from new entry ’Serenity’.

A shame that sci-fi actioner ’Serenity’ played on a rather meagre 12 screens after such good press, a wider release would almost certainly have seen it mount a serious challenge against the top two movies.

As it was new releases ’Kinky Boots’ and ’Night Watch’ came in at five and six respectively and made only £5,000 more combined than ’Serenity’ despite playing on nine more screens between them - Universal take note.

Falling victim to the next releases were ’Four Brothers’ and ’Howl’s Moving Castle’ dropping to positions seven and eight, while ’Crash’ might be enjoying its last weekend in the chart at nine after nine weeks and ’The 40 Year-Old Virgin’ took the wooden spoon at ten.

There’s only one contender for the top spot next weekend and that honour belongs to Messers Wallace and Gromit, although Nic Cage’s ’Lord of War’ should be there or there abouts.