Paramount's Lara Croft: Tomb Raider vanquished carping critics over the weekend as the adaptation of the popular video game took in $47.7 million. The take was more than twice that of its closest rival, Disney's Atlantis: The Lost Empire, which earned $20.3 million. Meanwhile, after five weeks, DreamWorks' Shrek continued to pull them in, earning $13.2 million and bringing its gross to $197.5 million. Last week's box-office winner, Swordfish, sank to fourth place with $12.7 million, while Pearl Harbor continued to spiral downward with $9.9 million, for fifth place. Total sales were up about 31 percent from the same weekend a year ago, rising to $128.5 million for the top 12 films, according to box-office trackers Exhibitor Relations.

The top ten films over the weekend, according to final figures compiled by Exhibitor Relations (figures in parentheses represent total gross to date): 1. Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Paramount, $47,735,743, (New); 2. Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Disney, $20,342,105, ($20,843,465); 3. Shrek, DreamWorks, $13,181,576, ($197,528,004); 4. Swordfish, Warner Bros., $12,725,519, ($39,779,248); 5. Pearl Harbor, Disney, $9,859,120, ($160,358,492); 6. Evolution, DreamWorks, $6,615,219, ($25,562,723); 7. The Animal, Sony, $5,804,106, ($45,471,728); 8. Moulin Rouge, 20th Century Fox, $5,030,265, ($36,629,874); 9. What's The Worst That Could Happen?, MGM, $3,007,054, ($27,723,009); 10. The Mummy Returns, Universal, $2,701,040, ($193,482,730).

The wife and daughters of Andrea Gail captain Billy Tyne crossed a major hurdle in their legal action against Warner Bros. Monday when a Florida judge denied Warner Bros.' motion to dismiss a lawsuit that the Tyne family and others brought against it following release of the 1999 movie The Perfect Storm. The families had charged that the studio produced the movie without attempting to get permission from them to use the names of relatives who were lost when the Andrea Gail presumably sank during a storm in October, 1991. Warner Bros. had argued that the movie, which starred George Clooney as Billy Tyne, was constitutionally protected since it was based on an actual historic event. The families claim that, except for some brief radio messages from the ship, there is no record of what actually occurred, that the story was therefore fiction and that the names of their deceased relatives were used so that the studio could exploit the film as a "true story." Also named as defendants in the case are Barry Levinson's Baltimore/Springcreek Pictures and Clooney's Radiant Productions.

Buyers of DVD movies are increasingly opting for full-screen ("pan and scan") versions of movies over widescreen ("letterbox" format), according to the online edition of Video Business magazine . Citing studio research, Corie Tappin, MGM's senior VP of marketing, told the publication: "It has been very skewed to widescreen. In the beginning it was 80/20, but now it's 55/45." Video Business also reported that sales of the full-screen version of Disney's Remember the Titans and 102 Dalmatians surpassed widescreen sales.

An executive of Boeing Satellite systems said Monday that the company will begin distributing movies to theaters via satellite on a test basis in November or December of this year, with a large-scale, formal rollout in late spring of 2002. Ron Maehl, senior vice president of the company, told Agence France Presse, the French news agency, in Paris that the speed of the rollout "depends on our relationship with the studios." He indicated that while Boeing plans to showcase the system in one or two cities later this year, the company hopes to partner with the studios. "The idea is to get the technology in place with a product that has high visibility," he said.

Egyptian filmmakers who stray from cultural norms in their themes are likely to find themselves ostracized not only in the film community but in Egyptian society as a whole, director Khalid Al-Haggar has told the British Guardian newspaper. Al-Haggar said that his first feature, about an abortive love affair between an Arab and a Jew, not only was banned in Egypt, but he himself was shunned by half his friends and his mentor, the country's leading film director, Youssef Chahine. "You're not allowed to question anything in Egypt," he told the newspaper. "If you're not wholly with them, you're against them." Now living in London, Al-Haggar commented, "I can go back to Egypt now, but I couldn't make any films unless they were completely anodyne [tranquilizing]." He said that his current film, Room for Rent, is relatively non-controversial and that originally the Cairo Film Festival invited him to show it there this year. "But I discovered that there was only one show -- just for journalists and critics. The public wasn't allowed in, so I refused."

NOTE: In Monday's Studio Briefing, we took note of reports indicating that Tomb Raider's box-office take was the largest for any debuting movie based on a video game, exceeding those for the previous record holder, Pokémon: The First Movie. Several readers have pointed out that the Pokémon video game was preceded by the TV cartoon series, card games, toys and picture books.

Suggesting that audiences remain interested in golf telecasts only when Tiger Woods is on his game, ratings for Sunday's NBC coverage of the U.S. Open fell 20 percent from last year. Overnight figures indicated that the telecast averaged a 7.0 rating, down from an 8.8 for the comparable day a year ago. Saturday's rating was a 5.5 versus a 6.5 last year. The golf contest was won by Retief Goosen of South Africa. Reporting on the sinking ratings for the Open, today's (Tuesday) Wall Street Journal commented that they reflect "the vulnerability of a sport that relies primarily on a single athlete, a fact that could ripple through negotiations over television-broadcast rights."

A top advertising analyst forecast Monday that ad revenue at the major broadcast networks is likely to decline 2.5 percent this year, while it will rise about 8 percent at the cable TV networks. Revising earlier estimates that were more sanguine, Robert Coen, a forecaster with Universal McCann, the media unit of ad agency McCann Erickson, said that the biggest loser will be "national spot" time sold by rep firms for local stations. As reported by Bloomberg News, Coen predicted a rebound next year, helped by the Winter Olympics and the Congressional elections.

Announcing casting calls this week in Chicago, Philadelphia and Cleveland, the producers of Fox's Temptation Island issued a disclaimer in an apparent effort to avoid a repetition of the legal action taken against them by a couple who were ousted from the first series because they had a child together. As reported by today's Los Angeles Times, the disclaimer read: "All potential participants must not be married and all applicants must not have or be expecting a child. All cast members must be willing to have their lives taped 24 hours per day, seven days a week, and feel comfortable appearing on national television in a bathing suit and similar attire."

Kelly Ripa, co-host of Live with Regis and Kelly and a member of the cast of the soap opera All My Children, said on Monday that she expects to extend her originally announced four-week maternity leave following the birth Saturday of a baby girl in New York. Live Executive Producer Michael Gelman later told the New York Post: "I told her to let me know how much more time she needed, and we'll reevaluate the situation. But she's going to extend her time off, probably by another week." Ripa phoned the talk show to announce the birth of daughter Lola Grace. Her husband is another All My Children star, Mark Consuelos.

HBO is planning to test a video-on-demand service in Columbia, SC next month that will allow viewers to watch the pay-TV channel's movies and other programming whenever they wish. Initially about 150 hours of programming, including the channel's current movie offerings and original programming like The Sopranos and Sex and the City, will be offered. In order to use the service, subscribers will be required to pay a monthly fee in addition to their usual HBO monthly subscription payment. The price was not disclosed.

Paramount has settled a lawsuit brought against it by actors George Wendt and John Ratzenberger, who had claimed that their likenesses were used for two robots installed in a chain of Cheers "theme bars" operated at major airports by Host International. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed.

The 20-year-marriage of Luke and Laura ended with divorce on General Hospital on Monday. At one point during the official parting, Luke, played by Tony Geary, remarked to Laura, played by Genie Francis, "Laura, I want you to know that when I look at you now, I don't see that 18-year-old girl. I see a woman, and she's magnificent." Laura did not reply exactly in kind, saying: "And if I am magnificent, it's only because I spent the first half of my life with you." Indeed, publicity photos of the couple released by the network show that Geary has aged dramatically since the 1981 wedding broadcast, which set a ratings record for daytime soaps. Laura, on the other hand, continues to look "magnificent."