As expected, The Matrix Reloaded set a box-office record for an R-rated film over the three-day weekend but, after a rocketing start, fell well behind the all-time leader, last year's Spider-Man. The Matrix Reloaded wound up with an estimated $93.3 million versus $115 million for last year's opening of Spider-Man. Nevertheless, for the four days (Wednesday's late-night previews were included in Thursday's grosses), the film earned $135.9 million, vs. Spider-Man's $125.9 million for four days. Daily Variety called the results "nothing short of phenomenal." Surprisingly, the film recorded its biggest haul on Thursday, $47.5 million (including the $5 million from previews). It drew an additional $31.2 million on Friday, $34.4 million on Saturday and an estimated $27.6 million on Sunday. (Premiering simultaneously in 13 countries overseas, it earned an additional $31.9 million over the three-day period.) Reloaded also shot down X2: X-Men United, which plunged 57.2 percent to $17.1 million, and landed in third place. Remaining remarkably strong in its second week, however, was Eddie Murphy's Daddy Day Care, which dropped only 30 percent to $19.2 million to hold on to second place. The '60s-type romantic comedy Down With Love opened (actually it played in a single theater a week earlier) with $7.6 million -- a figure that might have appeared to be exemplary in the '60s, but is likely to induce a lot of worried pillow talk between Fox executives who greenlighted the film and their wives. Sales for the top 10 films totaled $156 million, down 4 percent from $162.6 million a year ago.

The top ten films for the weekend, according to studio estimates compiled by Exhibitor Relations: 1. The Matrix Reloaded, $93.3 million; 2. Daddy Day Care, $19.2 million; 3. X2: X-Men United, $17.1 million; 4. Down with Love, $7.6 million; 5. The Lizzie McGuire Movie, $4.5 million; 6. Anger Management, $3.6 million; 7. Identity, $3.4 million; 8. Holes, $3.0 million; 9. A Mighty Wind, $1.7 million, 10. Bend It Like Beckham, $1.5 million.

The success of The Matrix Reloaded helped cheer an otherwise joyless meeting of the AOL Time Warner board of directors on Friday. Company Chairman and CEO Dick Parsons' announcement of the Thursday figures was greeted with enthusiastic response. Parsons then went on to urge the directors to concentrate on the future and not dwell on the turmoil of the past. Clearly, however, some members of the board were not willing to let bygones be bygones. Several members withheld their votes when it came time to re-elect AOL founder Steve Case and two other directors with close links to him. They were re-elected nonetheless. Other board members laid into Ted Turner. As reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, one remarked: "He frequently speaks out in ways that hurt the company. ... Why on earth should any of us give him another chance on the board?" Another remarked: "He frequently says that Christianity is a religion of losers. We don't need someone like that representing the company."

The Matrix Reloaded may have been the sensation of the weekend at the U.S. box office, but it appeared to leave the audience that saw it in Cannes Thursday night cold. While crowds lined the streets in front of the Palais de Festival to cheer the film's stars, Keanu Reeves and Monica Bellucci, many of those who left the theater after the gala screening (accompanied by the most expensive party in Cannes' history) grumbled that it was all flash and little substance. However, some festival veterans pointed out that the Cannes audience has rarely embraced blockbuster movies and has frequently taken to its heart abstruse films that have shown little commercial value. Indeed, Newsday's John Anderson, writing from Cannes on Friday, remarked, "The Matrix aside, many movies screened thus far have felt like movies made for festivals."

Warner Bros. has offered Keanu Reeves $75 million to appear in three films, the London Sunday Times reported, citing an unnamed industry insider. The newspaper said that one of the films may be a remake of the 1954 drama Salt of the Earth, originally produced by a group formed of blacklisted figures in Hollywood. (The Hollywood Reporter charged at the time that it was made "under direct orders of the Kremlin.") For an emotional film about labor unrest during the 1930s, Reeves would appear to be an odd choice. One reviewer called his performance in The Matrix Reloaded "vapid"; another referred to him as this "beloved block of wood."

Director James Cameron disclosed Sunday that he plans to shoot his next feature film in 3-D, using technology similar to that employed in the production of his recent Titanic documentary, Ghosts of the Abyss. Appearing at a news conference in Cannes, Cameron indicated that he was thrilled with seeing Ghosts projected onto the huge Palais de Festival screen the night before by four interlocked digital projectors (two for the right-eye image and two for the left). He noted that the result was a completely 3-D digital experience -- a movie shot with digital cameras, with effects produced digitally, and finally projected onto the screen using digital media.

Disney, which received much criticism for its marketing and distribution efforts on behalf of Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away (which ended up beating Disney's own animated product at this year's Oscars), has now agreed to distribute an animated feature produced in France. The company announced in Cannes on Saturday that it has bought for an undisclosed figure distribution rights to Onyx Films' 3-D animated film Renaissance, the first digitally rendered animated feature ever produced in France.

Jack Nicholson has acknowledged that he has been undergoing psychiatric therapy since the 1960s, primarily to deal with his explosive temper. In an interview appearing in the London Sunday Times, Nicholson admitted that he sometimes has broken into uncontrollable anger on movie sets -- most recently during the shooting of an as-yet-untitled film written and directed by Nancy Meyers, and costarring Diane Keaton and Keanu Reeves. "I blew my stack on the set for absolutely no reason," he told the newspaper. "Every once in a while, I just have to let it out. I always regret it later. ... Not regret it, because when I let go, there is no way out for me. But I find myself thinking, a couple of hours later: 'Could I have solved that without blowing up?' It seems ridiculous that, after all these years, I have no other way." Nicholson made the comments while in London to promote his latest film, Anger Management.

NBC is beating the Martha-Living daylights out of Martha Stewart -- with a lengthy Dateline feature on Sunday and a TV movie, Martha, Inc: The Story of Martha Stewart set to air on the network tonight (Monday). Chicago Sun-Times TV critic Phil Rosenthal speculates that the one-two punch may have been coordinated by NBC President Jeff Zucker, who may be one of many that Stewart alienated when she was a regular contributor to NBC's Today show, which he exec-produced at the time. Rosenthal remarks in his column today that the biopic, which stars Cybill Shepherd, "is touted as a biography but plays like a vivisection." Steve Johnson in the Chicago Tribune also figures that the movie must represent "major payback, because this movie ... is as sour as rancid lemon curd, as dark as too-blackened catfish. More than a simple hatchet job, this is a chainsaw massacre." Alessandra Stanley in the New York Times is not nearly so caustic, writing, in fact, that the network does an "entertaining job." However, she goes on to comment: "Ms. Stewart, who rose to fame on her own steely perfectionism and snobbery, is commemorated in a network special that is cheerfully sloppy and second-rate. Nothing is likely to torture her more." Jonathan Storm in the Philadelphia Inquirer makes a similar point, writing that the film "reeks of cheapness in a way that the diva of divine living would never tolerate." Linda Stasi in the New York Post finds Shepherd "relentless as the bitter, awful Stewart" and succinctly sums up the opinion of several other critics: In Shepherd's performance, she observes, "there is no good Martha to counter evil Martha." On the other hand, Washington Post critic Tom Shales describes the TV movie as "indescribably delicious" and says that it "also serves as a very shiny and spirited vehicle for Cybill Shepherd." Nancy Dewolf Smith in the Wall Street Journal concludes that "having an actress, particularly Cybill Shepherd, play Martha humanizes her" and notes that the film actually leaves out some of the "juiciest little episodes of the book on which it is based." Likewise Diane Werts in Newsday writes that Shepherd gets Stewart "down cold ... and we do mean 'cold.'" And Joan Ostrow in the Denver Post says that the film "reveals the public and private faces of Martha Stewart colliding. Viewers will come away not necessarily liking her any better, but 'getting' her. And that's a good thing."

It was a big night at the Daytime Emmy Awards for Wayne Brady Friday night. He not only hosted the ceremonies but received two Emmys himself -- for best talk show host and (tied with The View) for best talk show. In the soap opera competition, As the World Turns -- it's been turning since 1949 -- was voted best daytime drama. Susan Flannery of The Bold and the Beautiful was named best actress, and Maurice Benard of General Hospital won for best actor. Jeopardy was voted best game show and its host, Alex Trebek, best game show host.

Sunday night's season finale of The Bachelor concluded with Andrew Firestone getting down on one knee and asking Jen Schefft to marry him. "Yes. Yes, I will," she said, then reached out for the engagement ring that Firestone held. "Oh, you do it. Sorry," she said nervously. All of this culminated a two-hour special that scored ratings that were good by ABC standards but unimpressive otherwise. The first half-hour recorded an 8.5 rating and a 13 share, putting it behind NBC's Law & Order: Criminal Intent and the first hour of CBS's Hitler mini-series, Hitler: The Rise of Evil. At 10:00, ratings rose to a 10.7/17 -- ahead of the Hitler documentary but behind a second edition of Law & Order: Criminal Intent. News reports said that the finale was actually taped last Friday and that the couple have not seen each other since (so that no one could spill the beans). On Wednesday, ABC will bring the engaged pair back together again for The Bachelor: After the Final Rose.

Main Events CEO Kathy Duva is expressing confidence that NBC will return professional boxing to its schedule following a successful three-week ratings test that concluded Saturday. "I think it's quite certain we'll have a show in September," she told the MaxBoxing website. She said that a meeting has been set for next week to discuss a long-term deal. "Obviously the fact that we're having a meeting so soon is a very good indication," Duva remarked. "And we'll make our announcement to the boxing world, I would expect, in a few days."

Romance novelist Barbara Taylor Bradford has found some unexpected support for her lawsuit against an Indian producer who, she alleges, plagiarized her novel, A Woman of Substance, for a TV series. (Last week, the Indian Supreme Court halted the series until Bradford's case can be heard.) The support comes from numerous Indian screenwriters. One of them, Anurag Kashyap, told the Times of India on Sunday, "Our screenwriters have always been taken for granted. I have so many original scripts no producer wants to touch. They prefer to play safe, making remakes of Hollywood hits. Hopefully, this case will force Indian producers to buy the rights of [original] films and books before copying them." Screenwriter-director Vinay Shukla also welcomed Bradford's lawsuit. "We'll be forced to apply our brains now. Moreover, with the Indian film industry reaching out to overseas markets and the spread of the Internet, we were bound to be caught out sooner or later. Also, with globalization, as our films seek universal themes while preserving our distinct identities, there will be many more such cases."

ABC is commemorating its fiftieth birthday today (Monday). The network, which has had little to cheer about in years, is celebrating its half-century mark with a three-hour retrospective special tonight hosted by Oprah Winfrey and Richard Chamberlain.