Oscar-winning horror-thriller Parasite has become the highest-earning foreign language film at the UK box office, overtaking the 2004 Mel Gibson-directed film The Passion of the Christ.

Curzon, the film’s UK distributors, reported that Parasite passed Passion’s cumulative total of £11,078,861 on Friday; Parasite’s closing total that day took it to £11,081,375. By the end of the weekend the film had added another £377,332 to reach £11,458,707.

Parasite’s full total for last weekend – £528,864 – represents a 49.5% drop from the weekend before, when it took £1,047,024; it was however playing at fewer sites, 504 as against 579.

Parasite was released on 7 February in the UK, and had taken an impressive £1.4m before the Oscars. However, its best picture win had a dramatic effect on its box office, with cinemas recording an 81% increase as it surged to second place in the chart (behind the newly released Sonic the Hedgehog) with takings of over £2.5m in the first post-Oscar weekend. A black and white version of the film is due for release on 3 April.

In the US, where the film has been on release since May 2019, it has taken $52.8m, well behind Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’s $128.1m, recorded in 2000.

Neither country is reporting any major impact on the wider box office from the coronavirus outbreak, with the UK’s rolling box office total 14% up for the year to date compared to the same period in 2019. Last weekend, however, has seen a considerable drop of over 42% from 2019, of £10.98m compared to £18.94m, but this has been ascribed to the huge opening total racked up Captain Marvel last year, with no equivalent major release in 2020. In the US, totals dropped week on week, broadly reflecting the disappointing predictions for the new Pixar film Onward.