Shrek 4 bakes no prisoners

Russell Brand may have stepped up his efforts to break Hollywood this weekend with Get Him To The Greek , but it was Shrek Forever After that won over audiences - for the third consecutive week.

Clearly capitalising on playground word-of-mouth, the fourth ogre outing retained its number one spot at the box office with a further taking of $23m this weekend. Its current total now sits pretty at $181m.

Brand was not to be dissuaded, though, settling instead for the number two place and an opening of $17.5m. Third new opener of the week Killers – starring Katherine Heigl and Ashton Kutcher – premiered to a decent but not mind-boggling $15.5m.

Sandswept biggies Prince Of Persia and Sex And The City 2 both also proved top dogs, taking fourth and fifth respectively, and earnings of just over $12m each. The sandy epic is evidently here to stay.

Meanwhile, Marmaduke was left with his tail between his legs as the kids all piled in to the Shrek scrum instead of attending his movie debut – the Owen Wilson voiced mutt bowed with a piffling $11m in sixth.

Iron Man 2 clung on with $7.5m (and a massive $291m total, now where’s Iron Man 3 ?), while sneaking up just behind with $7m was Sundance favourite Splice .

Rounding out the top ten were BO sliders Robin Hood and Letters To Juliet , the former raking in $5m, the latter a tidy $3m.

What did you see this weekend?