The Julia Roberts-starrer Mona Lisa Smile held on to the top spot for a second week grossing over $6m by Feb 1, but there was considerable shuffling of positions in the Top 10 with no less than four new entries.

Concorde started off the year well coming straight in at No. 4 with the horror film Underworld and Tobis Film's release of Samba In Mettmann (at No. 7 with a screen average of $2,492) showed that German cinema audiences were prepared to forgive TV comedian Hape Kerkeling his past cinematic aberrations and flock to see his latest outing into feature films.

However, the Top 10's highest screen average was scored by Kinowelt Filmverleih's release of the nature documentary Deep Blue with $7,381 from 82 screens to gross over $600,000 in its first four days.

This strong opening was in stark contrast to the shaky relaunch of Kinowelt's theatrical distribution arm last year when Werner Herzog's documentary Rad Der Zeit only posted Euros 102,668, Gabriele Salvatores Berlinale 2003 film Io Non Ho Paura Euros 108,714, and the Jeepers Creepers sequel just topped the 100,000 admissions barrier to collect Euros 608,998.

Forthcoming releases by Kinowelt include Cannes Golden Palm-winner Elephant, the Oscar-nominated Twin Sisters and Touching The Void.

Although the Turkish film Hababam Sinifi Merhaba slipped back out of the Top 10, Maxximum Film's 30-print release still commanded the highest screen average in the Top 15 - $8,440 - and has now exceeded $1m in gross box office.