Wreck-It Ralph reclaims UK box office crown

Wreck-It Ralph is a fantasy adventure set inside amusement arcade machines

Disney's 3D animation Wreck-It Ralph has returned to the top of the UK box office in its third weekend on release.

Its Friday to Sunday earnings of £3.42m topped those of A Good Day to Die Hard, which dropped to two after topping last week's chart.

The latest instalment in Bruce Willis's action franchise saw a 64% drop-off on its first-weekend takings.

Horror film Mama, starring Jessica Chastain, claimed third place after taking £1.51m in the UK and Ireland.

Tom Hooper's film of the musical Les Miserables held steady at four, its weekend haul of £765,367 bringing its total UK tally to £37.8m.

Rounding off this week's Top Five was romantic comedy I Give It A Year, whose £632,195 takings over the weekend took its overall UK box office above £5 million.

Wreck-It-Ralph, from The Simpsons and Futurama director Rich Moore, was nominated for an Oscar in the animated feature film category but lost out to Pixar's Brave.

But Paperman, the seven-minute cartoon that precedes screenings of the film, did leave Sunday's ceremony with the award for best animated short.

According to Screen International, Wreck-It Ralph's overall UK takings of £18.6m in the UK now exceed those of Disney's 2008 animation Bolt, which took £17.9m, but have yet to top those of Tangled, which earned £20.5m in 2010.

Other new releases last weekend included Cloud Atlas, starring Tom Hanks and Halle Berry, and Song for Marion, starring Vanessa Redgrave alongside Terence Stamp.

The films entered the Top 10 in sixth and eighth positions, with takings of £544,725 and £456,714 respectively.

Film-going on the whole was down on last week, with total earnings from the Top 15 movies falling from £15.8m to £11.6m.