New Zealanders' overwhelming sense of pride in and ownership of The Lord Of The Rings trilogy was good news for the opening of the final instalment, The Return Of The King, which did an extraordinary NZ$2.6m last weekend.

To put this in perspective, it accounted for more than 75% of the total gross for all the films in the top 20 chart and more than doubled the opening figure for The Matrix Revolutions.

The only other new entry in the top 10 list was BVI's Brother Bear, which took NZ$65,691 to land in fifth position, despite being only on previews. Underworld dropped more spots than distributor Columbia TriStar would have liked in its third week on release while Roadshow's Elf rose two. Documentary Step Into Liquid was also playing just on previews this week.