There was no hiding from Robert De Niro at the UK box officethis week as 20th Century Fox's horror title Hide And Seek ended MeetThe Fockers' four week reign atop the chart.

Hide And Seek saw a strong debut taking $3.1m (£1.6m)from 345 sites for a $8,852 location average. These figures included previewsof $209,726 (£109,500) from 270 sites. De Niro stars with Dakota Fanning, FamkeJanssen and Elisabeth Shue.

Despite relinquishing the lead Meet The Fockers, inwhich De Niro stars with Ben Stiller, Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand, sawyet another £1m plus weekend and now boasts a phenomenal $50.4m (£26.3m)cumulative after just five weeks. The film's total gross should surpass lastyear's Spider-Man 2 total (£26.7m) this week and is on course to breezepassed £30m.

Proving star popularity can overcome all kinds of hurdlesUIP's Coach Carter, a true-life Basketball drama starring Samuel LJackson, gained a solid opening on 180 prints with $898,397 (£469,062) - a$5,000 site average.

Although ranked only eighth Coach Carter was thebiggest opening of the week ahead of the wide release of Wes Anderson's TheLife Aquatic With Steve Zissou and James L Brooks' Spanglish - whichtanked on 325 sites.

Carter was particularly impressive because it is anAmerican sports drama which usually flounder in the UK. In recent yearsAmerican Football true-life drama Remember The Titans opened in Feb 2001on $529,927 (£276,680) at 275 sites, less than $2,000 screen average. Thefollowing year inspirational Baseball drama The Rookie managed anuninspiring $53,992 (£28,190) total gross, while just last year Ice Hockeydrama Miracle, about the 1980 US Olympic glory, failed to get a UKtheatrical release and was released direct-to-video.

Elsewhere Eros International enjoyed a strong start with Bewafaaat 16 while Entertainment Film Distributors recorded good numbers for thelimited start of Hotel Rwanda at 18 (the film expands to approximately200 sites next weekend).