'Da Vinci' dominates at London cinemas

The adaptation of Dan Brown's bestseller destroys the competition at the box office.

May 24 2006

Love it or loathe it, the last week in film has been dominated by 'The Da Vinci Code', and as expected, it opened to massive numbers at the London box office.

Grossing more than three times the total of the rest of the top ten combined, Ron Howard's film grossed a whopping £824,830 from 23 screens, making it the biggest film of the year thus far.

However, as I've said before in The TOMB, poor reviews and bad word-of-mouth combined with the release of 'X-Men: The Last Stand' next week means that the film's time at the top could be short-lived.

For now however, Tom Cruise was no match for Tom Hanks, with 'Mission: Impossible III' dropping to two with a £139,696 gross.

Further down the chart James Marsh's excellent 'The King' made a disappointing debut at number seven, while the risible gross-out comedy 'Waiting' deservedly came in at nine.