Despicable Me 2 dominates UK box office

Despicable Me 2 sees Gru, voiced by Steve Carrell, recruited by the Anti-Villain League

Animated film Despicable Me 2 has topped the UK box office, taking almost two-thirds of the entire top 15 box office in its opening weekend.

The sequel to the 2010 film made £14.8m - £3.6m more than Man of Steel made in its first weekend.

The Superman film took £2.43m and has now made £26.2m in the three weeks since its release in the UK.

Apocalyptic comedy This is the End and thriller Hummingbird were the two other new entries in the top five.

Seth Rogen's comedy made £1.39m from 407 screens, putting it in fourth place.

While Hummingbird, starring Jason Statham, was at number five, making £206,731 from 262 screens.

Eco-terrorism film The East, starring Alexander Skarsgard and Ellen Page, debuted at 15 after making £65,523 at just the one cinema it was shown in.

Worldwide hit

The first Despicable Me film was a worldwide hit taking more than $543m (£355m).

The Minions, the small yellow henchmen that feature in both Despicable Me movies, are to get their own spin off feature film, released in 2014.

Despicable Me 2 is also looking set to dominate the US box office.

Hollywood Reporter predicted it could make $110m (£72m) by Sunday according to its pre-release tracking, beating Johnny Depp's Lone Ranger.

The US box office is continuing to boom after a record-breaking May.

Takings in June came in at $1.25bn, (£819m) up 18% on June last year according to Box Office Mojo.