'Inbetweeners' breaks U.K. records

LONDON -- U.K. teen laffer "The Inbetweeners" has loved the greatest weekend opening ever for any Brit comedy and native indie pic within the territory, taking 13.two million ($21.8 million) from 455 sites in Blighty and Ireland. The figures, including 2 days of previews ($4.3 million on Wednesday and $3.two million on Thursday), trumped the prior greatest Brit comedy opening, "Bridget Johnson: Fringe of Reason," which made $17.two million in the first weekend in 2004. The $5.8 million pic, that is written by Entertainment Film Marketers and it is created by Film4, is really a spinoff from Funnel 4's eponymous hit sitcom four socially troubled teenage boys as well as their adventures in senior high school. Within the feature pic version, the gang mind to The island for 2 days to party without any parents, no instructors with no money hoping of meeting youthful women. The whopping opening figure also far surpassed opening weekend figures of top Brit pic of 2011, "The King's Speech," which made $5.5 million in the first weekend as well as outperform opening weekend figures for Disney's "Pirates from the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" ($19.a million) and "Transformers: Dark from the Moon" ($17.7 million). Pic is composed through the program's original designers and authors Damon Beesley and Iain Morris, while Ben Palmer directs and Christopher Youthful produces. Pic toplines Simon Bird, Joe Thomas, James Buckley and Blake Harrison. In Cannes, IM Global was selling the pic, that was quickly acquired by a few worldwide areas, including The country (Aurum), Canada (Walnut Pictures), France (French Connection) and Germany (Where You Started Entertainment), a task for this type of localized comedy. Pic does not possess a U.S. distrib. Contact Diana Lodderhose at diana.lodderhose@variety.com