..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Kim Voynar
..Michael Wilmington

Lemony Has the Juice; Spanglish Tongue Tied Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events debuted at the top of the box office charts with an estimated $30.4 million in an otherwise soft movie going frame. While the darkly ironic kid lit yarn had potent returns, two other national bows generated indifferent results. Spanglish charted third with $9.2 million and the remake of Flight of the Phoenix was grounded in eighth spot with about $4.9 million. The session was also abuzz with limited bows of high profile award contenders with both The Aviator and Million Dollar Baby soaring to $20,000 plus theater averages and fair to poor results for Beyond the Sea and The Sea Inside. In a season already rife with unusual family fare, Lemony Snicket had reason to be anxious that its arrival was a little late on the schedule. However, the popularity of the series and an effective marketing campaigning paved the way for an excellent opening and hopes of displaying the sort of stamina The Polar Express has demonstrated through the holiday season. The highly anticipated Spanglish from filmmaker James Brooks failed to ignite fervent interest from critics or audiences. Its $3,770 theater average looked pale in the current hot house climate and is expected to wilt dramatically in the coming weeks. It was also largely ignored in last week's doling out of awards and nominations from critics groups. Flight of the Phoenix received a "why bother" response in the marketplace. The season usually features a couple of action/adventure programmers that generate in the arena of $40 million to $60 million but this remake will not rise from the ashes and appears to be grounded at perhaps $20 million. Overall business was disappointing with the weekend struggling toward a $110 million gross for a very modest 4% boost over the prior weekend. It was a distant 22% behind the comparable period in 2003 when the third installment of The Lord of the Rings stormed in with $72.6 million. With the year's box office standing at $8.8 billion (and nothing with Rings' potential in the offing), business has shrunk to a slim 2% lead over last year that's likely to diminish even further. Admissions in 2004 will definitely register a decline. On the holdover front, Ocean's Twelve saw it box office shrink by half while The Polar Express continued to defy trends with a solid 90% hold. Both Finding Neverland and Closer had expansions of close to 100% but failed to breakout with the former up a modest 12% and the latter down a worrisome 11%. Though it lost close to 50 theaters, Sideways saw its box office climb 27% on an avalanche of best picture awards from critic's organizations. Of all seasonal releases, Sideways stands to gain the most appreciably from artistic honors. Two other films from kudos veterans finally stepped out for viewer scrutiny with positive initial results. Martin Scorsese's look at Howard Hughes' early years in The Aviator bowed on 40 screens and glided to a smooth $810,000. Clint Eastwood's gritty boxing saga Million Dollar Baby also had a solid connection with a little more than $170,000 from eight screens plus $55,000 since its Wednesday release. The box office fates were less kind to several other frosh entries. Spain's Oscar submission The Sea Inside struggled to $55,000 at 23 venues for a disappointing $2,400 average while Kevin Spacey's Bobby Darin bio Beyond the Sea had a middling $43,000 response from six playdates. Imaginary Heroes with Sigourney Weaver had a moribund $4,200 tally at two locations. The frame also featured a couple of solid openers in regional and niche markets. In Quebec the period musical drama Ma Vie in Cinemascope had a Technicolor bow of about $360,000 in 86 venues. On the Bollywood front, Swades debuted just shy of $300,000 at 75 locations. - by Leonard Klady