Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn posts franchise best $22m (£13.9m) opening in UK from only three days.

Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 posted the second-best opening of the year in the UK, taking $22m (£13.9m) from 543 screens at an excellent screen average of $40,452 (£25,619).

The film has become the biggest 2D opening of 2011 beating the previous record set by The Inbetweeners Movie which took $20.7m (£13.2m) over five days. Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part Two sits comfortably in first position on $37.2m (£23.8m).

The fourth in the series posted the biggest non-3D opening Friday figure of all time of $9.9m (£6.4m), moving beyond Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, which grossed $9.2m (£5.9m).

The opening is the 15th best ever in the UK.

The three-day take narrowly surpassed 2010 Eclipse which made $21.6m (£13.8m) from 523 screens. New Moon grossed $18.3m (£11.7m) from 497 screens in 2009 while first in the franchise Twilight took $3.9m (£2.5m) from 446 in 2008. Breaking Dawn took another £1.2m on Monday.

Commenting on the film’s tremendous performance, Alex Hamilton, director of film, Entertainment One said: “We have the highest three day opening ever for an American film in the UK. I’d like to thank all the fans of Twilight that have given this three year old independent distributor a weekend to remember.”

Sony’s Arthur Christmas made a strong $3.6m (£2.3m) from 462 screens for a total of $7.8m (£5m) after two weeks, to comfortably retain second place ahead of The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret Of The Unicorn and Immortals.

Paramount’s action-thriller Justice was the only other newcomer to enter the top 15, debuting in seventh position on $432,892 (£276,483) from 245 screens at an average of $1,767 (£1,129).

However, the take was the smallest of the 29 Nicolas Cage films to have opened on more than 200 screens in the UK and follows hot on the heels of Lionsgate’s Trespass which made less than Justice, but at least from only 91 screens.

Revolver’s Australian crime-drama Snowtown opened in 16th, taking $81,907 (£52,323) from 26 screens at an average of $3,149 (£2,012), while Peccadillo’s indie hit Weekend continued to impress in its third week, taking a further $40,033 (£25,574) from 20 screens for a cumulative of $220,182 (£140,656).

This week sees saturation releases for Warner Bros’ Dream House, Sony’s Moneyball and Entertainment’s My Week With Marilyn.