Prince Gets Sand Kicked In His Face.

[John Johnson]

Disney hyped Prince of Persia up the wazoo in the UK for months and were expecting at least a £4.5m opening and hoping for better than Robin Hood's £5.75m. Instead, not only did they only do marginally better than Robin Hood's second weekend take of £1.36m, but Persia's £1.37m gross (lower even than Iron Man 2's third weekend) only got them second place - and to add to the humiliation, a low-budget Britflick called Streetdance took number one with £1.8m at 50 fewer screens (though it admittedly has a 3D ticket hike going for it, the hike isn't as steep as some US theaters and it's totalled £2.4m with previews). Persia's got pretty okay but nothing great reviews while the barely marketed Streetdance has got surprisingly strong ones and very positive word-of-mouth. That's gotta hurt Bruckheimer...