Working Title/UIP hit Johnny English held strong, dropping off just 26% in its second weekend, to retain the top spot against powerful competition from 20th Century Fox's Phone Booth and UIP's own How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days.

The combined power of the holiday weekend releases (three made the top five) and last week's holdovers Johnny English and The Jungle Book 2 helped the box office to its first year-on-year rise (8%) for six weeks. The total box office for the top 15 films also saw a 6% improvement week-on-week.

Johnny English stayed at the top with an impressive second weekend gross of $4m (£2.5m) from 446 sites for a location average of $8,960. The film has already taken a stellar $13.7m (£8.6m) after 10 days on release for UIP.

Fox's thriller, Phone Booth, demonstrated the increasing popularity of star Colin Farrell taking second place with $2.2m (£1.4m) from 254 sites and a mighty average of $8,614 per site - this included preview figures of $208,387 (£131,909) from 212 sites. Meanwhile BVI's The Recruit, also starring Farrell, played in sixth place this weekend and has taken $6.1m (£3.9m) after five weekends.

In third, UIP launched romantic comedy How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days for $2m (£1.2m) at 361 sites with an average of $5,461 - including previews of $477,866 (£302,489) at 317 sites. Another launch title, Pathe's martial arts action comedy Bulletproof Monk, also made the top five (at five) with a three-day gross of $960,251 (£607,839) at 322 sites - an average of $2,982.

BVI's The Jungle Book 2 dropped off just 6% in its second weekend as children continued to make the animated sequel their top choice over the school Easter holidays. The film claimed $1.5m (£927,890) over the weekend from 481 sites and has a $5.6m (£3.5m) cumulative score after 10 days on release.

The Jungle Book 2 was not the only kids release benefiting from holiday cinemagoing. Warner Bros' The Little Polar Bear gained 2% on its opening weekend, although the resultant $114,785 (£72,659) from 234 sites still provided a weak average of just $491 per location.

Meanwhile BVI's Large Screen Format release of Ghosts Of The Abyss, James Cameron's documentary which sees the Oscar-winning director journey back to the wreck of the Titanic, took an impressive $20,365 (£12,891) from two sites over the weekend. The film has grossed $40,918 (£25,901) since opening on April 15.