Last Wednesday, chancellor of the exchequer Gordon Brown did a U-turn, exempting filmmakers from the regulations. If the regulations had remained, the UK's loss would have been the Irish film industry's gain, making Irish tax inducements more appealing to investors.

Never mind that Peter O'Toole nearly won an Oscar in Venus for his performance as a philandering actor who, in the twilight of his career, develops a crush on a 19year-old girl. Irish audiences seemed put off by the idea of a movie in which four of the leading actors - O'Toole, Richard Griffiths, Leslie Phillips and Vanessa Redgrave - have a combined age of over 300. Venus, despite being a wonderfully funny romance, earned a disappointing Euro47,479 in its opening Irish weekend, nearly Euro250,000 less than the charttopping Hot Fuzz, which in three weeks has grossed Euro1,863,829.

ALL IRELAND TOP FIVE (weekend 2-4 March) 1 (1) Hot Fuzz (Edgar Wright) Euro291,600 (Euro1,863,829 to date) 2 (2) Charlotte's Web (Gary Winick) Euro176,465 (Euro1,875,445) 3 (3) The Good Shepherd (Robert De Niro) Euro114,966 (Euro379,625) 4 (-) The Illusionist (Neil Burger) Euro91,040 (-) 5 (-) Blood Diamond (Ed Zwick) Euro86,208 (Euro1,538,961) Compiled from Sunday Tribune industry sources

US TOP FIVE MOVIES (weekend 2-4 March) 1 (-) Wild Hogs (Walt Becker) $38m (-) 2 (-) Zodiac $13.1m (-) 3 (1) Ghost Rider (Mark Steven Johnson) $11.5m ($94.8m) 4 (3) Bridge To Terabithia (Gabor Csupo) $8.6, ($57.9m) 5 (2) The Number 23 (Joel Schumacher) $7.1m ($24.7m)