As X-Men fever swept the globe over the weekend, the UK was no exception to 20th Century Fox's mammoth success. Indeed X2: X-Men United's $11.3m (£7m) four-day opening from 449 UK sites gave the distributor its highest international opening for the film.

The comic-book adventure easily took the top spot over the three-day weekend with a take of $9.5m (£5.9m), after launching on Thursday for a first day gross of $1.8m (£1.1m) from 447 sites. The result was the highest opening so far in the territory in 2003 and 25% higher than the three-day launch of 2000's X-Men - which claimed $7.6m (£4.75m) from 434 sites.

The original went on to gross $24m (£15m) in the UK and Ireland. Already over half way to that total after just five days on release - X2's total, including the UK bank holiday Monday, comes to $14.5m (£9m) - the sequel will easily surpass its predecessor and has three clear weeks to reign before Warner Bros' hugely anticipated The Matrix Reloaded crashes the party on May 23 (the next UK bank holiday weekend).

X2 brought an end to the three week leadership of UIP's Johnny English which fell 47% to second place for a weekend gross of $1.9m (£1.2m) from 461 sites. Working Title's spy spoof has proved yet another success for the company grossing $25m (£15.6m) to date in the UK.

Holding up well in its third week and retaining third place was another UIP release, How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days. The romantic comedy, which stars Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey, dropped off just 23% this weekend to take $1.2m (£752,743) for a cumulative score of $7.3m (£4.57m). The film is unlikely to match the UK total of director Donald Petrie's previous comedy, Miss Congeniality, which took $17.3m (£10.8m).

Also showing continued strength was another Fox title, Phone Booth. The Colin Farrell starrer slipped just 29% in its third weekend and has earned $7.4m (£4.59m) after 17 days on release.

Impressing on a limited five print release was the BFI's re-release of classic Italian film The Leopard. Count Luchino Visconti's 1963 film took an astonishing $62,663 (£39,102) over the three-day weekend for a location average of $12,533. It stars Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale.

The only other openers to glimpse a top 15 position this week were Pathe's drama The Heart Of Me and Columbia TriStar's Half Past Dead which took up 12th and 13th positions respectively.

The Heart Of Me, which stars Helena Bonham Carter, Olivia Williams and Paul Bettany, managed a slim $84,080 (£52,466) from 41 sites for a weak average of $2,051. Faring even less well was Steven Seagal thriller Half Past Dead which brought in a paltry $73,250 (£45,708) from 73 sites for an average of only $1,003 per location.

Next week sees the release of UIP's comedy Old School, BVI's Hope Springs and Columbia's horror Darkness Falls as well as a 76-location release for Momentum Pictures' I Capture The Castle, starring the UK's latest new hot talent Romola Garai - who will also be seen in Fox's Nicholas Nickleby adaptation on June 27.