Universal comedy towers over Lion King 3D and Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark.

Johnny English Reborn stormed to the top of the UK box office, opening on $7.8m (£5m) from 524 locations at a strong site average of $14,850 (£9,475).

The second instalment in the popular spoof franchise eclipsed the 2003 original Johnny English, which made $5.3m (£3.4m) from 445 sites an average of $12,075 (£7,719) on its way to a hefty $30m (£19.2m).

The haul is Rowan Atkinson’s second-biggest debut in the UK behind Mr Bean’s Vacation, which opened on $10m (£6.4m), and is the UK’s biggest opening since The Inbetweeners Movie in August.

The Lion King 3D landed in second place in the UK with an impressive $4.2m (£2.7m) from 414 locations at an average of $10,399 (£6,635), a far better performance than another recent classic rerelease Jurassic Park, which only made $384,787 (£245,500) from 277 screens.

StudioCanal’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy continued to impress in its fourth week, making it four consecutive frames over $1.6m (£1m) after grossing $1.6m (£1m) from 468 screens.

Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark was the week’s third-highest new entry in fifth, with $776,960 (£495,734) from 229 locations at an average of $3,393 (£2,165).

Woody Allen’s Midnight In Paris also debuted on $776,925 (£495,709), but from only 153 screens at an healthy screen average of $5,078 (£3,240). The result is Woody Allen’s second-best UK opening behind 2003 thriller Match Point, which debuted on $1.2m (£751,992) for Icon.

Paddy Considine’s critically acclaimed Tyrannosaur debuted in 20th.

Warner’s family-adventure Dolphin Tale, Disney’s Real Steel and eOne’s action The Three Musketeers get saturation releases while there are wide openings for Entertainment’s Texas Killing Fields and The Works UK Distribution’s documentary The Greatest Movie Ever Sold.