Fast & Furious 7 tops UK and Ireland box office chart

Diesel first played Dominic Toretto in the first Fast and the Furious film, released in 2001

The latest Fast and Furious film left the pack trailing at the UK and Ireland box office, making more than four times as much as its nearest rival.

Fast & Furious 7 took £12.7m between Friday and Sunday, the second highest debut of 2015 so far.

Only Fifty Shades of Grey has topped that total this year, having made £13.5m in its first three days.

Disney's Cinderella remake is second in this week's chart, having made £2.9m in its second weekend in cinemas.

Animated adventure Home is ranked third, having made £2.3m between Friday and Sunday.

Jason Statham (r) plays Vin Diesel's nemesis in Fast & Furious 7

Fast & Furious 7 has enjoyed record-breaking success around the world, having taken $384m (£257m) in its opening weekend.

Almost half of that figure was made in the US and Canada, where the film is known simply as Furious 7.

The film marks the final screen appearance of actor Paul Walker, who died in a car crash in 2013 while the film was being made.

Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson also appear in the sequel, which sees Diesel's Dominic Toretto pursued by a vindictive killer played by Britain's Jason Statham.

Other new entries fared poorly in this week's chart, among them Russell Crowe's directorial debut The Water Diviner and the Ben Stiller comedy While We're Young.

Stiller plays a film-maker trying to recapture his youth in While We're Young

The former, a drama set in the aftermath of World War One, is ranked seventh, having made £521,546 between Friday and Sunday.

The latter, in which Stiller plays a film-maker trying to recapture his youth, is at eight, having taken £427,151 over the same period.

The only other new entry in this week's Top 10, the reissued "final cut" of 1982 release Blade Runner, is ranked at nine with three-day takings of £267,452.

It was confirmed in February that Harrison Ford is to return to the role of Rick Deckard in a forthcoming sequel to Sir Ridley Scott's seminal sci-fi.