Big Momma's House failed to unseat Gladiator from the top of the UK box office last weekend as the Roman epic continued its glory run in the cinema arena. Gladiator scooped $1.5m (£1m) on its seventh weekend bringing its total to an unbelievable $36.7m (£24.4m). The Martin Lawrence comedy from 20th Century Fox grossed $1.2m (£800,000) in its opening three days placing it at number two in the chart.

UK ticket revenues returned to normal pre-summer levels after the mega-low of the previous weekend when hot weather and effects of the Euro 2000 soccer tournament had kept cinema-goers out of the cinemas. Box office favourites Gladiator and Final Destination both increased weekend on weekend grosses by 59% and 51% respectively. The top 15 chart aggregate still remained low at $5.9m (£3.9m) but is likely to be the lull before the storm of this weekend's release of Chicken Run.

Buena Vista International's romantic comedy The Next Best Thing starring Madonna and Rupert Everett opened at number six with $421,588 (£280,386) from 243 sites while Deception (aka Reindeer Games) performed less well taking $152,000 (£101,094) on 171 screens for a place at number nine in the chart.