'War of the Worlds' annihilates the box office competition

The latest from Spielberg and Cruise dominates the London cinema scene.

Jul  5 2005

'Predictable' is probably the word for this weekend's London box office, with the combined efforts of Steven Spielberg, Tom Cruise and a bunch of malevolent aliens destroying everything in their path.

'War of the Worlds' opened with £500,693 on 22 screens, rocketing the film to the top of the charts, where it is likely to stay for the next couple of weeks.

Indeed, the big budget behemoth also tops the UK, US and pretty much every chart in every country that it was released over the weekend, with the film already grossing over $200 million worldwide.

Elsewhere, the alien invasion has appeared to stop the chart in its tracks, with last week's numbers one to seven simply shifting down a place and former Time Out film of the week 'The Consequences of Love' clinging to the ninth spot like its life depended on it.

Indeed, the only other new entry is 'Walk on Water', an intriguing political thriller that scored a £9,736 opening weekend from just seven screens.

And expect little to change next week, with Neil Marshall's excellent horror 'The Descent' the only film likely to make any sort of impact at the top.