'Finding Nemo' tops box office after netting £415m

The feature-length animation, Finding Nemo, about a lost clown fish, has overtaken Matrix Reloaded to become the most successful film of last year. A $25m (£14m) surge last weekend pushed the Pixar and Walt Disney production to annual takings of $745m.

Matrix Reloaded, the second instalment of the sci-fi trilogy, grossed $738m. Pictures which failed to live up to commercial expectations in 2003 were the Harrison Ford film, Hollywood Homicide and the Jim Carrey-Morgan Freeman comedy, Bruce Almighty.

Finding Nemo tells of a father clown fish's search for his kidnapped son, Nemo. The co-director Andrew Stanton had the idea while watching a fish tank in his dentist's waiting room in 1992.