Hollywood again dominated the Spanish box office, which rose 6.2% to $392.6m for the first six months of 2009, compared with $368.6m for the same period in 2008.

The top 10 is made up entirely of US studio films, with Fernando Gonzalez Molina’s local comedy Brain Drain (Fuga De Cerebros), released by Fox and at number nine in the chart ($9.5m), the only low budget film.

Sex Party & Lies Released by Sony, took $6m putting it in 22nd place, followed by Pedro Almodovar’s Broken Embraces, which took a relatively disappointing $5.7m.

Local films accounted for just 7.8% ($30.7m) of the $392.6m total. That percentage rises to 9.6% ($37.7m) including Spanish co-productions such as Welcome To The Sticks ($4.8m) and Che: Guerrilla ($1.14m).   

There are a number of big local projects due this year including Alejandro Amenebar’s historical epic Agora and Daniel Sanchez Arevalo’s comedy Gordos, which could help to improve the performance of the local market in the second half of the year.