Steven Spielberg’s War Horse has had a stellar opening weekend at the UK box office, stealing the hearts of Great Britain and galloping in at No1, with a weekend total of £3.9million.
With nearly three times the box office of second place runner The Iron Lady, War Horse also beat last year’s British triumph, The King’s Speech’s opening weekend of £3.3million (a film which went on to take £45m in the UK) and Spielberg’s own hugely successful World War II epic Saving Private Ryan, which took £1.9m in its opening weekend.
The Iron Lady was up a single place from three to two while Meryl Streep is now the hot favourite for the Oscar after scooping the Golden Globe.
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows fell just a single place while Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol was down three places from last week's number one.
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo continued to perform well as it dropped to number five - all the movies in the top five broke the £1 million barrier this weekend.
The Darkest Hour was the second new entry inside the top ten this week as it opened at number six.
Award hype has seen The Artist climb a place this week from eight to seven; the movie picked up the Best Picture and Best Actor for a Musical or Comedy at the Golden Globes at the weekend.
Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked and Puss In Boots both fell three places to eight and nine.
Shame was the third and final new entry inside the top ten this week at ten.
1. (-) War Horse - £3,944,746
2. (3) The Iron Lady - £1,489,528
3. (2) Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows - £1,403,319
4. (1) Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol - £1,373,539
5. (4) The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - £1,046,225
6. (-) The Darkest Hour - £740,773
7. (8) The Artist - £688,546
8. (5) Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked - £681,642
9. (6) Puss in Boots - £679,348
10. (-) Shame - £535,288