Fox International’s Gulliver’s Travels debuted top of the UK chart, towering over its opposition on the first weekend of 2011.

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The Rob Letterman-directed adventure-comedy took a resounding $10.9m (£7m) - including five days of previews - from 497 locations at an impressive screen average of $22,027 (£14,142) over the Dec 31-Jan 02 weekend.

Paramount’s comedy Little Fockers did decent holdover business in second place, grossing $4m (£2.6m) from 482 screens at an average of $8,450 (£5,425).

The third instalment in the Robert De Niro-Ben Stiller driven franchise was the top performer over the Christmas weekend, when it took $4.7m (£3m). With preview receipts totaling a strong $8.6m (£5.5m) Little Fockers has already amassed $17.4m (£11.2m), $10.1m (£6.5m) more than Meet The Parents had grossed by its second week in December 2000 but $6.7m (£4.3m) off Meet The Fockers’ commanding second week tally of $24.1m (£15.5m) in February 2005.

Fox saw further success with romantic-comedy Love And Other Drugs, which opened third after scoring a $2.5m (£1.6m) haul from 410 screens. The studio has three films in the UK top 5, with Chronicles Of Narnia: Voyage Of The Dawn Treader playing in fifth, having taken $1.9m (£1.2m) from a week-high 501 screens.

eOne’s drama The Way Back opened in fourth position, grossing $2m (£1.3m) despite playing on only 254 screens, the fewest among the top ten titles.

The UK box office displayed impressive depth over the first weekend of 2011, with the top seven titles (Tron: Legacy and Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows rounded out the top seven) each grossing more than $1.6m (£1m) for the first time since records began.

UTV’s Hindi-language action-adventure Tees Maar Khan dropped 69% after its fifth placed opening last weekend, this week grossing $152,711 (£98,033) from 58 screens for a respectable cumulative of $972,769 (£624,469), while Artificial Eye’s 16th placed drama Of Gods And Men posted a good bounce-back weekend, achieving a 442% upturn in week-on-week box office, for a cumulative total of $561,295 (£360,330).

This week sees saturation releases for Momentum’s Oscar-tipped The King’s Speech, Warner Bros.’ true-life drama 127 Hours, Lionsgate’s thriller The Next Three Days and Paramount’s fantasy-adventure Season Of The Witch.

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