Bridget Jones's Diary took £604,445 over Easter at the Irish box office, putting the hugely hyped British film fifth in the all-time list of opening weekends here. The figures amount to a good performance, if not, as the eponymous heroine might write in her eponymous diary, a "v.v. good" one.
Predictably, the twin disadvantages of its perception as a "chick flick" and of having Hugh Grant in a lead role appear to have deterred male cinema goers, with a spokesman for distributors United International Pictures estimating the female domination of the audience to date at "70 to 80 per cent".
Ironically, UIP believes this week's televised European football quarter-finals will push the first week's takings to over £1 million. "Football generally drives the female audience to the cinema," the spokesman said.
Indeed, even some Manchester United fans may find solace in the company of the cigarette-smoking Chardonnay-swilling heroine and her obsession with the need for self-improvement. Man United, like Bridget, are now desperately in search of a good man, if only to play alongside Roy Keane in midfield.
The films with the best opening weekend in Ireland is Star Wars: the Phantom Menace.
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