TRAINSPOTTING, the film depicting the highs and lows of heroin addiction, has smashed box-office records during its opening weekend in selected cinemas across the UK.
According to the film's London publicists, cinemas in London, Oxford, Cambridge and Scotland have taken in more than #530,000 since the movie opened on 57 screens on Friday.
After much hype and blanket publicity, crowds flocked to London's West End cinemas, ensuring that takings records were broken in eight of the 13 theatres showing the Scottish film, based on the novel by Irvine Welsh.
The #1.5m film, which has managed to stir up controversy as well as being a hit with critics, also proved a crowd-puller in Edinburgh, the setting for the novel.
The city's Cameo Cinema said its three-day takings figure of #16,800 broke the cinema's seven-day house record, which was for Shallow Grave, directed and produced by the Trainspotting team.
Cameo general manager Eileen Dignan said the cinema had put on additional screenings and the response from the public over the weekend had been very enthusiastic.
In Glasgow, the Odeon cinema predicted its box-office takings this week would outstrip its previous record held by the American horror film, Silence of the Lambs.
Earlier, it emerged that 5% of the movie's profits would go to the Glasgow-based drugs rehabilitation project, Calton Athletic Recovery Group, which acted as advisers for the film and have rejected suggestions that Trainspotting glamorises addiction.
With the film already proving a huge success and set to be screened in France after the Cannes Film Festival in May, America in July, and the rest of the world thereafter, the recovery group, which runs a hardline programme for addicts in the East End of Glasgow, could receive a very substantial sum.
Last night, Calton Athletic's founder and former drug addict David Bryce said he was delighted, adding that the cash would be used to extend the club's services to help some of Glasgow's estimated 10,000 injecting addicts.
``The people from Trainspotting have been marvellous and can be assured that we will spend the money wisely.''
He said the film makers and the actors had spent a considerable amount of time with members of the club, and expressed their faith in the club's work and its uncom-promising programme for addicts.
The film's publicist, Jonathan Rutter, said the decision to donate a significant slice of the profits from the film to Calton was a goodwill gesture on the part of the film's producer, Andrew McDonald. The club is already set to receive #25,000 from the glitzy premieres held in Glasgow and Edinburgh last week.
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