Here’s great news for people who like good movies: Hot Fuzz is off to a killer start in the UK. Universal opened the film there on Valentine’s Day, and it proceeded to make $1.76 million on 500 screens. This doesn’t sound like a lot to us Americans, but when you realize that this is 50% more than Bridget Jones’ Diary did, and twice what Universal’s in-house tracking was, you realize that this is a huge success.
The movie is on target to an 8 million dollar opening weekend. I am actually going to come out here and tell you that I don’t know if these figures, which I got from Variety, are supposed to be pounds, or if they’re pounds converted to bucks, but either way, Shaun of the Dead did almost 2 million pounds on its opening weekend, so this is a major step up for Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.
Now let’s see if America can make Hot Fuzz as much of a success as it has been in the UK. Bridget Jones’ Diary opened at 10.7 million in the US – mobilize your friends and families on April 20th and let’s make sure the Fuzz beats Bridget again!