As to be expected, the final part of the Matrix trilogy, The Matrix Revolutions (Warner) wrestled the top spot away from Soenke Wortmann's The Miracle Of Bern which had reigned on high for the last three weeks.

The latest Matrix instalment's 1.1m admissions (including 230,000 from the additional Wednesday screenings) were impressive but disappointing when compared to the 1.8m posted by The Matrix Reloaded in May. The film was showing on a staggering 1,069 screens to garner the weekend's top screen average of $ 7,490, followed by NFP teleart's release of Eric Till's Luther with $5,020.

The biopic starring Joseph Fiennes and Sir Peter Ustinov held in at the No. 3 spot to take another $ 1.6m, and NFP and UIP have now announced that a number of subtitled prints for the hard of hearing will start running in selected cinemas from November 13.

Although Wortmann's film saw its admissions slip compared to the previous weekend, the football and father-son drama has passed the magical 2m admissions barrier and looks within easy reach of the 3m needed for a Golden Screen Award from the German exhibitors association HDF. Moreover, the director of The Miracle of Bern has been invited by Germany's Federal President Johannes Rau to accompany him on his state visit of Latin American countries, including a presentation with the Goethe Institut in Mexico City on November 21.

As Michael Schmid-Ospach, chief executive of Filmstiftung NRW and one of the film's backers, noted, "it is a great honour that Federal President Rau has invited this film and Soenke on his journey. The speech by the Federal Chancellor on the film's opening and this gesture by the President are a good sign for the German cinema, for German culture. That will help many filmmakers."