U.K. Box Office: 'Furious 7' Leaves Rest of Pack in Dust

Only 'Fifty Shades of Grey' has had a better opening this year.

There was only one real competitor over the long Easter bank-holiday weekend in the U.K.

Mirroring its record-breaking figures in the U.S. and elsewhere internationally, Furious 7 dominated the U.K. box office, taking more than the rest of the top 10 films combined. Its opening bow of $18.7 million was the second-best debut of the year, beaten only by Fifty Shades of Grey.

The success of the gas-guzzling action-thriller — more than three times that of the sixth installation, which opened in 2013 with $4.6 million and went on to earn $38 million — meant that Cinderella’s spell as belle of the box-office ball was short-lived. Disney’s live-action remake slumped more than $10 million for a total of $4.4 million in its second week, but it still took enough to fend off DreamWorks Animation’s Home, which took $3.7 million to bring its total to $22.2 million after three weeks.

With one film firmly in the fast lane, there were relatively slim pickings for the week’s other new entries. Russell Crowe’s directorial debut, The Water Diviner, was the best of the bunch, landing in seventh with $800,000, quickly followed by Noah Baumbach’s While We’re Young ($600,000) and the British Film Institute’s theatrical rerelease of Blade Runner: The Final Cut ($400,000).

In the unlikely event of British cinemagoers flocking en masse to see John Wick, Hot Tub Time Machine 2 or Ryan Gosling's critically panned Lost River — all released this Friday — Furious 7 should have enough momentum to keep it leading the pack for at least another week.