The Brotherhood Of Wolves, backed by StudioCanal, has attracted a strong 1.5 million admissions in its first five days in France, but the $29m (FFr200m) title has yet to top records set by other domestic films such as Taxi 2 and Asterix Et Obelix Contre Cesar.

The Christophe Gans-directed title, which stars Samuel Le Bihan, Vincent Cassel and Monica Bellucci, bolted out of the starting blocks on January 31, topping the French charts with 301,694 admissions on its opening day and breezing past Disney's 102 Dalmatians, which came second with only 96,671 tickets sold.

The period thriller benefited from a massive 700-print opening through Metropolitan Filmexport which also produced the film, through Davis Films, along with StudioCanal-owned production outfit Eskwad.

However, although it also rode on an unprecedented post-opening publicity blitz, on the theme of "We French can also turn out US-style blockbusters", Brotherhood Of Wolves has failed to break any records as of yet.

France has had several domestic blockbusters in the last few years, such as the Luc Besson-produced action comedy Taxi 2, which last year bagged the all-time best opening day record with 759,152 admissions. The previous record holder was Pathe's 1999 chart-topper Asterix Et Obelix Contre Cesar with 446,724 admissions, which had already pushed Gaumont's 1998 hit Les Visiteurs 2 (427,291 admissions) off the top spot.

Taxi 2 also broke the best five days record (2,951,255 tickets sold) and the best first week record, racking up 3,478,150 admissions, compared to previous record-holder Les Visiteurs with 2,665,916 admissions in 1998, which had itself passed Steven Spielberg's The Lost World (1,992,899 ticket sold).