Blue Jasmine scores Woody Allen's biggest UK box office opening

The Cate Blanchett vehicle earned more than £800,000 in three days

Cate Blanchett stars in Blue Jasmine

The critically lauded Blue Jasmine has secured the best UK box office opening weekend of director Woody Allen's career.

The film, starring Cate Blanchett as a Park Avenue wife who suddenly loses her fortune, has already garnered considerable Oscar buzz.

Its good reviews, including a five star write-up in The Independent, led to a strong £832,000 opening weekend, taking an average of £4,497 from each of the 185 cinemas where it was screened.

According to Screen International, Blue Jasmine surpassed Match Point’s £751,992 three-day take in 2006. With strong word-of-mouth, it could beat the £2.8m haul of Midnight In Paris to become Allen’s biggest grossing movie on these shores.

However, the film didn’t do enough to win the weekend. That honour went to Hugh Jackman’s Prisoners, which took £1.4m. Last week’s box office champion Rush fell to second with £987,296.

The much-maligned Diana lost more than half its audience, taking £271,565 over the three-day frame for a ten-day total of £1.39m.

Irvine Welsh adaptation Filth managed to generate £250,000 – almost three times as much as Trainspotting - in Scotland ahead of its opening in the UK.

The box office should be relatively quiet over the next few weeks, with few highly anticipated releases outside of Thor: The Dark World at the end of this month.