20th Century Fox scored a powerful opening for Moulin Rouge in France where six months ago the film world premiered as the opening night film of the Cannes International Film Festival. The film's five day total was $1.893m on 343 screens, making it the number one film in France over the weekend.

Baz Luhrmann's musical extravaganza also opened at the top spot in French-speaking Switzerland ($134,601 on 20 screens) and had strong bows in Portugal ($133,045 on 44 screens), Poland ($133,969 on 35 screens) and Egypt ($27,353 on four screens).

Also over the weekend, the film rose 3% in its second weekend on release in Italy to take $739,901 on 188 screens, bringing its total in the territory to $1.79m. In its second weekend in Belgium, it grossed $641,440 for a drop of just 3%.

The total international gross for Moulin Rouge is now $53.77m and it is poised to overtake its domestic gross in the next fortnight. This week, the film opens in United Arab Emirates (Oct 10), Spain (Oct 11) and Denmark, Finland, Iceland, South Africa and Sweden (Oct 12).