Inbetweeners' breaks U.K. records

LONDON -- U.K. teen laffer "The Inbetweeners" has enjoyed the biggest weekend opening ever for a Brit comedy and local indie pic in the territory, taking 13.2 million ($21.8 million) from 455 sites in Blighty and Ireland. The figures, which include two days of previews ($4.3 million on Wednesday and $3.2 million on Thursday), trumped the previous biggest Brit comedy opening, "Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason," which grossed $17.2 million in its first weekend in 2004. The $5.8 million pic, which is distributed by Entertainment Film Distributors and is produced by Film4, is a spinoff from Channel 4's eponymous hit sitcom about four socially troubled teenage boys and their adventures in high school. In the feature pic version, the gang head to Crete for two weeks to party with no parents, no teachers and no money in the hopes of meeting young women. The whopping opening figure also far surpassed opening weekend figures of top Brit pic of 2011, "The King's Speech," which grossed $5.5 million in its first weekend and even beat out opening weekend figures for Disney's "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" ($19.1 million) and "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" ($17.7 million). Pic is penned by the program's original creators and writers Damon Beesley and Iain Morris, while Ben Palmer directs and Christopher Young produces. Pic toplines Simon Bird, Joe Thomas, James Buckley and Blake Harrison. In Cannes, IM Global was selling the pic, which was swiftly picked up by a number of international territories, including Spain (Aurum), Canada (Maple Pictures), France (French Connection) and Germany (Square One Entertainment), a feat for such a localized comedy. Pic does not yet have a U.S. distrib. Contact Diana Lodderhose at diana.lodderhose@variety.com