Last Thursday's terrorist attacks in Londonforced the closure of many cinemas with admissions dropping between 75% and 80%from the previous day.

However, general consensus amongst UKdistributors on Monday was that little impact had been made to the capital'sweekend box office as resilient Londoners continued with their normalroutines.

Box office for the top 15 titles nationwidewas down 44% week-on-week but this was largely accounted for by the lack of anyblockbuster openings and sweltering weather, which commonly has a detrimentaleffect on UK box office.

The weather, combined with screen-grabbingpreviews for UIP's Madagascar (the figures for which - $3.2m (£1.8m)from 472 sites - are not included in the top 15 this week), saw theblockbusters sinking.

However, even these drops were neitherexcessive nor uncommon for such titles with War Of The Worlds slipping44% from its launch weekend, Batman Begins 43% week-on-week in itsfourth weekend and Mr And Mrs Smith just 35% in its fifth.

If anything, London's West End appearedstronger than the nation as a whole. Figures for all top 15 titles were down 40%week-on-week.

Redbus Film Distribution's Israeli thriller WalkOn Water, which is currently only on release in the West End, saw aweek-on-week rise over the weekend improving 19% on its opening weekend.

West End earnings for titles like Mr AndMrs Smith (down 29%) and Pathe's Bombon - El Perro ( down 22%) heldup with relatively minor drops considering the weather and a crowd-drawingcelebration of the 60th anniversary of the end of the Second World War onSunday (which drew crowds of 250,000 people).

Other blockbusters titles saw acceptable andweather-explainable drops: Batman Begins (40%), Star Wars: EpisodeIII (45%), War Of The Worlds (48%).

Meanwhile Pathe's The Descent, an 18certificate horror movie that was the country's only wide opener at theweekend, performed much more strongly in London's West End than nationwide. Thefilm grossed $71,969 (£41,454) from 13 West End locations for a $5,536 siteaverage, compared to $991,059 (£570,850) from 329 nationwide - a site averageof $3,012.

This is all the more remarkable given that The Descent attracted tragic attention in the aftermath of the attacks on London. Its poster was prominently emblazoned on the bus that was blown up in Central London.