Bollywood is the current craze for the British cinegoers with Bollywood films pushing home-grown productions to play second fiddle at the box office.

A record 74 Indian films were released in the United Kingdom in 2005, compared to just 61 British productions. 9 Indian productions made it to the top ten and three scooped more than one million pounds at box office last year.

"During the last 12 months, nine Bollywood films have entered the top 10 list of films compared with just seven British ones," The Sunday Telegraph reported.

Bollywood movies have evolved from being merely a source of " candyfloss entertainment" with their colourful song and dance routines and improbable storylines.

Akshay Kumar & John Abraham starrer ‘Garam Masala' collected £292,033 in its opening weekend, Hrithik Roshan starrer Indian superhero ‘Krrish' made £210,499 during the same period and ‘Dosti: Friends Forever' entered the UK box office chart at number five after grossing £146,069 in its opening weekend. Each of the three films have now grossed around £1 million.

Hindi films are overpowering home-productions inspite of expensive publicity drives and all-star casts. Aamir Khan and Kajol starrer ‘Fanna' collected more than 3,00,000 pounds in its opening weekend, while ‘The Libertine' starring Johnny Depp, took 2,78,000 pounds over the same period. So far ‘Fanaa' has taken a total of 1,176,000 pounds, almost double that earned by ‘The Libertine'.

The unprecedented level of commercial success has been fuelled by a new generation of young British Asians whose appetite for Indian films means that three of Britain's biggest cinema chains, Cineworld, Vue and UCI, now routinely screen Hindi language films.

Non Asian audiences are also willing to engage with the subtitled Indian Movies. These audiences are accustomed to India with the popularity of TV programmes like The Kumars At No 42.

Trade analysts believe that Bollywood films can now expect to make more than £2 million at the British box office. Recently released KANK, which stars Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, Abhishek Bachchan, Rani Mukherji and Preity Zinta, opened at no. 6 of UK charts having collected 754,877 pounds in the first weekend.