Dr. Seuss' The Lorax fails to uproot The Dark Knight Rises at the UK box office

Christopher Nolan’s climactic Batman instalment has retained top spot in the UK for a second consecutive week, after The Dark Knight Rises recorded an estimated $10.6m (£6.8m) second weekend.

Despite a week-on-week drop of over 50% - arguably both as a result of the Olympics and its high opening weekend - Warner Bros.’ superhero crime epic took almost four times its nearest challenger, Universal’s Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax, and with a non-final running total of $47.4m (£30.2m), has already overtaken Batman Begins’ final tally of $26.0m (£16.6m).

TDKR is also tracking ahead of The Dark Knight, which stood at $39.8m (£25.4m) after its second weekend, and the year’s current highest-grossing film The Avengers - Marvel Avengers Assemble in the UK - which had amassed $46.8m (£29.9m) at this stage in its excellent $81.3m (£51.8m) run.

Universal’s 3D animation Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax was this week’s highest new entry as it grossed $3.0m (£1.9m), including previews, to chart second.

That opening is less than $5.7m (£3.7m) taken by Despicable Me - produced by Illumination Entertainment and co-directed by The Lorax co-director Chris Renaud - back in October 2010, although is ahead of the debut of Illumination’s only other feature Hop, which debuted with $2.2m (£1.4m) in April 2011.

Its fortunes are also mixed when it comes to other recent big screen adaptation of Dr. Seuss’ books as The Lorax managed to topple The Cat In The Hat’s opening salvo of $2.7m (£1.7m), but is behind the debuts of both Horton Hears A Who! ($4.6m/£2.9m) and The Grinch ($4.8m/£3.1m).

Dropping a place to third in its third week - once The Lorax’s previews are factored in - was Fox’s Ice Age: Continental Drift.

The latest instalment of the ever-popular franchise took an estimated further $2.4m (£1.5m) to stand at an ice-cool $33.3m (£21.2m) to date, a haul stronger than the original Ice Age’s $23.7m (£15.1m) but one unlikely to challenge Ice Age: The Meltdown ($46.5m/£29.6m) or Ice Age: Dawn Of The Dinosaurs ($55.2m/£35.2m).

Perhaps suffering somewhat with the arrival of TDKR, Sony’s The Amazing Spider-Man fell 43% in its fourth weekend on its way to an additional $940,000 (£600,000). The 3D reboot has now amassed $37.2m (£23.7m), behind each of the original trilogy’s final grosses with only Spider-Man 2’s $41.9m (£26.7m) a slight possible target.

Rounding off this week’s top five was Lionsgate’s comedy-drama Magic Mike which danced to $828,000 (£528,000) for a highly impressive $10.5m (£6.7m) after three weeks in play.

Taking a decent $108,000 (£68,857), including previews, on its UK bow was StudioCanal’s highly acclaimed music documentary Searching For Sugar Man to chart 7th; the distributor’s other recent release, Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World has currently taken $1.3m (£815,346) to date.

This week sees saturation releases for Fox’s threequel Diary Of A Wimpy Kid: Dog Days and Universal’s comedy Ted (opens Aug 1). Disney/Pixar’s latest Brave receives a regional release (expands nationwide from Aug 13), while Revolver’s Chinese box office smash The Flowers Of War, Dogwoof’s Oscar-winning documentary Undefeated and Peccadillo’s Leave It On The Floor are among the films receiving limited releases.