Box office triumph at home, too

Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat movie has matched its American success in the UK, topping the British box office in its opening weekend.

The movie took £6.2 million in its first few days on release, according to Screen International, almost three times the average UK figure for a film coming straight in at No. 1.

It knocked gory fashion film Saw III into second place, with £2.5million takings.

The news follows the film’s surprise triumph at the American box office, where it took $26.2million (£13.9m) – about double what the industry had estimated.

The figures came despite distributors Twentieth Century Fox deciding to drastically scale back the number of cinemas it was shown in, amid fears the film wouldn’t initially perform well.

In the end, it knocked Disney’s Santa Clause 3 into second pace, with receipts of $20million, even though the Tim Allen family comedy opened in around four times as many venues.

Fox released Borat in just 837 cinemas across the United States and Canada, down from initial plans of 2,500 cinemas, after its market research suggested that mainstream moviegoers didn’t share critics’ anticipation of the film.

The film, directed by former Seinfeld writer Larry Charles, was made for a relatively modest $18million, meaning a huge, instant return on the investment.

It will now open in the rest of the 2,500 North American cinemas next week.

Published: 5 Nov 2006