Twentieth Century Fox's Rocky Balboa beat the competition hands down in Ireland (North and South) on its opening weekend with a massive $1.2m (Euros 925,390). A major comeback for a franchise after 16 years in retirement, Sylvester Stallone's biggest Irish opening of all time took more than 40% of all ticket sales, bringing in original Rocky fans along with a second generation of young recruits.

This latest success follows Twentieth Century Fox's bumper year as 2006's top distributor across Ireland, with a gross box office of $43.3m (Euros 33.5m) from 30 titles. The company ended the year with four of the top ten films - Borat at number 3 with a gross of $5.8m (Euros 4.5m), Walk The Line at number 5 with a gross of $5.6m (Euros 4.3m), Ice Age 2 at number 7 with $4.4m (Euros 3.4m), and The Devil Wears Prada at number 8 with $3.4m (Euros 2.6m).

This is in line with Fox Filmed Entertainment's record-breaking 2006 worldwide gross of $3.56bn at the theatrical box office.

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