Despiteless than enthusiastic reviews from many German film critics, Tom Tykwer's $63.3m (Euros 50m) adaptation of Patrick Sueskind's bestselling novel Perfume - The Story Of A Murdererattracted more than 1m admissions on its opening weekend for distributor Constantin Filmverleih in Germancinemas.

The1.04m admissions from 700 cinemas - with a screen average of more than 1,480 -made it the strongest opener this year for a German film, ahead of two other Constantin releases: TheWild Soccer Bunch 3 on 639,368 tickets with $3.9m (Euros 3.1m) from 571screens and Hui Buh - Das Schlossgespenst from 243,909tickets with $1.6m (Euros 1.3m) from 701 screens.

Perfume was fourth biggestopener so far this year behind Ice Age 2:The Meltdown with $17.8m (Euros 14.1m) and 2.4m admissions, Pirates Of The Caribbean 2 with $17.1m (Euros 13.5m) and 1.9m admissionsand The DaVinci Code $13.3m (Euros 10.5m) and 1.5m admissions. Every second ticketsold this weekend in Germany was for Perfume, translating into a market shareof 53%.

The potentially strongopening of the Bernd Eichinger production was alreadyevident in its performance in the first 24 hours after its release lastThursday, when it had already clocked up 251,137 admissions, with the highestentrance figures being posted by Cinedom Cologne,followed by the Mathaeser in Munich, CinemaxXat Berlin's Potsdamer Platz and the Cinestar Metropolisin Frankfurt.

Perfume's opening performance was a welcome change for the better from therecent sluggish trend at the German box office which had seen Cars open the previous weekend with only427,230 admissions/$3m (Euros 2.4m) from 814 screens.

Constantin reported that Perfume also topped the cinema charts inAustria and Switzerland on its opening weekend:the 92 prints released by Constantin Film Holding Wien attracted 131,000 admissions and a screen average of1,420, while Switzerland's Rialto Film posted53,000 admissions in 43 cinemas with a screen average of 1,200.

In just one weekend, Tom Tykwer's latest film has already been seen by morecinema-goers by either of his last two features in their overall theatricalruns: The Princess AndThe Warrior with 567,614 admissions and $4.2m (Euros 3.3m) and Heaven with 418,911 admissions and $3.2m(Euros 2.5m). Perfume looks set toeasily eclipse the 2.2m tickets sold for Tykwer'sbreakout Run Lola Run in Germany.