Demon barber tops UK box office

LONDON (Reuters Life!) - Oscar-nominated "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" took the British box office by storm on its opening weekend, taking 4.5 million pounds ($8.95 million), according to Screen International.

Tim Burton's adaptation of the 1979 Stephen Sondheim musical could see its star Johnny Depp win best actor at the Oscars next month for his blood-soaked performance as the murderous barber extracting revenge in 19th century London.

Depp and his co-star Helena Bonham Carter ended the brief run of "Alien Vs Predator: Requiem" at the top of the UK chart.

The dueling monsters were pushed down to second spot, one place above Hilary Swank's portrayal of a smart Manhattanite who gets mail from her dead husband in "P.S. I Love You," still at No. 3 after six weeks.

Down two places at four was Tommy Lee Jones in the Oscar-nominated "No Country for Old Men," an ultra-violent story of theft, pursuit and slaughterhouse bolts in Texas.

The girls of "St Trinian's" were up one at five while Will Smith as possibly the last man on Earth in "I Am Legend" was down two at six.

Seventh, unchanged, was "Alvin and the Chipmunks" while down three places at eight were Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts in Soviet-era thriller "Charlie Wilson's War."

Disney's send-up of its trademark fairy tales, "Enchanted" slipped one place to nine.

New at 10 was Tommy Lee Jones in the role that has earned him a best actor Oscar nomination, that of a former Vietnam veteran looking for his son in "In the Valley of Elah."