The Beauty and the Beast number is particularly impressive when you consider that we are currently not in a school-holiday period.
Beauty and the Beast has debuted with a stunning £19.7m, just shy of double the Jungle Book number.
Ever since the UK’s cinema programmers saw the completed version of Bill Condon’s Beauty and the Beast, commercial confidence in the film has been sky high.
All four of the films achieving bigger weekend debuts are rated 12A – Beauty and the Beast has delivered the biggest three-day number ever for a PG film.