UIP opened BridgetJones on 370 screens on Thursday and soaked up A$5,588,507 of the cinemaspend of Australians over that and the next three days. The screen average wasa highly impressive A$15,104. Cinemagoers spent more to see the film then theydid to see the other 19 in the chart combined.

Another opener, Taxi,was the second most popular film of the weekend grossing A$1,015,347 from 163screens for 20th Century Fox. Rounding out the top five was BVI's Hero, Columbia TriStar's The Forgotten, both in their secondweekend on release, then BVI's Shall WeDance' on its fourth weekend in cinemas.

Four other openers appeared clustered near the bottom. Thestrongest performer was MG Distribution's VeerZaara (15th), which grossed A$83,655 from just eight screens for a screenaverage of A$10,478, followed by UIP's NapoleonDynamite (17th), which took A$69,687 from 10 screens. Also in this groupwas Icon's Paparazzi (19th), whichdid very poorly with only A$30,040 from 48 screens, and Hoyts' Final Cut (20th), which brought inA$27,878 from 14 screens.