Unsurprisingly, the third instalment of the Harry Potterfranchise had the best opening weekend of the year so far. Launched with 1,204prints, the film posted the sixth best-ever opening weekend and the best everopening outside of the months of November and December.

Askaban's 2m-plusadmissions (including Wednesday evening screenings) were, however, some way offfrom the 2.6m for Harry Potter And ThePhilosopher's Stone or the 2.5m for HarryPotter And The Chamber of Secrets.

The Day AfterTomorrow, Troy and Der Wixxerwere all shunted down a position, but still managed between them to attractover 1m admissions, while Brother Bearsaw a surge of 84% in takings from its 400 prints to take over $ 174,000 andbring its gross up to $ 18.8m.

With the top four films occupying over 3,500 screens ofGermany's total 4,800-plus, other films hardly got a look in, with Germanfeature documentary Addicted To Acting(Die Spielwütigen) following four drama students through seven years oftraining, grossing a screen average of $2,313 from 32 locations.