Harry Potter And ThePrisoner Of Azkaban has smashed opening day records in the UK.

Released yesterday (May 31), a UK holiday Monday and thefirst day of school half-term holidays, the film grossed a colossal $9.2m(£5.03m) from 535 locations.

This gave the third instalment in the franchise the biggestopening day and biggest single day grosses of all time in the territory.

Prisoner Of Azkabanis the first film ever to gross over £5m on a single day in the UK.

The opening easily out-gunned other launches so far thisyear. Van Helsing claimed $9.1m(£4.94m) from 458 sites in its first three-day weekend from May 7-9. Troy brought in $11m (£6m) over itslaunch three-day weekend, which included $4.2m (£2.3m) of previews.

This weekend saw Fox's TheDay After Tomorrow take $13.4m (£7.3m) over four days (May 27-30) at 429sites.

When Harry Potter AndThe Philosopher's Stone debuted on Nov 16, 2001 it raked in $3.9m (£2.1m)from 505 locations. A year later (on Nov 15, 2002) Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets claimed $3.99m (£2.18m)from 522 sites on its first day.

Chamber Of Secretswent on to record the then highest single day gross with its Saturday (Nov 16,2002) take of $7.9m (£4.3m).

In total Philosopher'sStone grossed $121.2m (£66m) in the UK, while Chamber Of Secrets tallied $99.3m (£54.1m).