Disney's long-delayed The Alamo will be facing an army of adversaries at the box office over the Easter weekend, and although analysts expect it to claim a victory with receipts in the range of $16-19 million, such a win is nevertheless likely to be regarded as costly, given the $100-million expenditure on the film. Moreover, if such an outcome does in fact ensue, it will follow by one week the disappointing take for Disney's Home on the Range. The film's chief competitor is believed to be Warner's The Whole Ten Yards, starring Bruce Willis and Matthew Perry, a sequel to The Whole Nine Yards, in which Willis played a former mob hit man, and Perry, his skittish dentist. It also faces rivalry over the year's most strictly religious holiday from Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, which, during the middle of the week, has been resurrected in second place. On its opposite flank, The Alamo will be struggling against Sony's Hellboy, last weekend's No. 1 film. On another front, two new films aimed at female moviegoers will be battling it out -- 20th Century Fox's The Girl Next Door, and Miramax's Ella Enchanted. And, as if that weren't enough to fracture the box office, there's also Fox Searchlight's Johnson Family Vacation (which opened Wednesday), starring Cedric the Entertainer and Vanessa Williams, directed at the urban audience.

Last year's family hit Cheaper By the Dozen has turned out to be richer by the millions as 3 million DVD and VHS copies were snapped up in the first day of release, according to Fox Home Video. Meanwhile, Video Store magazine reported that for the week ended April 4, Disney's hand-drawn animated feature Brother Bear was the top home-video title with more than 5 million DVD and VHS units sold. The rental champ was Sony's Something's Gotta Give, starring Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton, with $13.38 million in rental earnings.

Robert Rodriguez's decision to resign from the Directors Guild of America rather than conform to its "one director-one film" policy has now imperiled Paramount's A Princess of Mars, which Rodriguez had been slated to direct, Daily Variety reported today (Thursday). Under terms of its agreement with the DGA, Paramount may only hire directors who are members of the guild. "We are in discussions with Mr. Rodriguez and are trying to come up with a solution," Paramount COO Rob Friedman told the trade publication. Rodriguez quit the DGA last month so that he could co-direct Dimension Films' Sin City with Frank Miller, who wrote and illustrated the graphic novel series on which the movie is based. Rodriguez had sought a waver from the DGA so that he could work with Miller, but the guild had refused, maintaining that it has a firm position that only one director may receive screen credit on any film. Further complicating matters, Rodriguez has said that he wants Quentin Tarantino to direct part of Sin City as well.

British Columbia filmmakers expressed outrage Wednesday as the province's BC Film, which contributed financing to locally produced feature films, doled out its last dollars before shutting down, a victim of government cutbacks. In an interview with the Toronto Globe and Mail, producer Harry Sutherland remarked, "This government is just pathetic. For a government that is supposedly based on business, they completely fail to understand how business operates. It just amazes me." He noted that he received a $75,000 grant from BC Film for a feature that he plans to shoot in May. The amount, he said, represents less than 10 percent of the total budget," Sutherland observed, "but it's a crucial 10 percent." He noted that a government investment can also trigger investments from private sources. The Globe and Mail cited statistics from BC Film indicating that for every dollar it has put into a film, an additional $7.62 is contributed by the federal government and $6.81 from private investors.

Veteran ABC News correspondent Cokie Roberts has expressed fears that the apparently imminent shakeup of top brass at the network will impact its news division. In an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer, she said that she is particularly concerned about the future of ABC's Nightline, hosted by Ted Koppel, which airs opposite NBC's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and CBS's The Late Show with David Letterman. "People here are always worried about the network's commitment to news," Roberts remarked, recalling that two years ago, the network wooed Letterman, offering him the Nightline time period. Now, with Leno signing a new contract, she observed, "whither goest Conan O'Brien? ... Will he replace Nightline?"

Critics have swooped down on The Swan, Fox's latest reality series in which a group of women willingly subject themselves to a physical and psychological transformation, laying into it with vitriolic scorn not seen in print since Anna Nicole Smith made her reality-series debut. They were reacting, however, not to the show itself which aired Wednesday night and which Fox decided not to screen for them in advance, but to its concept. John Doyle in the Toronto Globe and Mail described it with such phrases as "a crackpot offshoot of Extreme Makeover," "seems to be about so much cruelty and such savage debasement of women," and "icky." Phil Rosenthal in the Chicago Sun-Times remarked, "You have to marvel at the state-of-the-art cruelty behind the network's latest carny sideshow." Mathew Gilbert in the Boston Globe wrote this "preview" of the show in Wednesday's edition: "Eighteen unattractive women undergo cosmetic surgery and life coaching to compete in a beauty contest. ... Millions of viewers undergo lobotomies to watch it." (In fact, the show performed strongly at 9:00 p.m., nailing a 9.2 rating and a 14 share, beating a repeat of NBC's Law & Order, which came in second with 7.5/12. ABC's The Bachelor made its season debut with a 6.3/10 in its first hour.)

Numerous websites have sprung up encouraging viewers of American Idol to bet on their favorite contestants, posting odds, and handicapping the race. Noting, for example, that contestant Jasmine Trias carries only 6-1 odds, handicapper James Millman of readabet.com, remarks today (Thursday): "At those odds she surely has to be worth including in our staking plan. This is not to say that she is lacking in the talent column - it's just that American Idol 3 is fast turning into a popularity contest with little to do with singing ability."

Donald Trump hinted strongly Wednesday that he will quit The Apprentice after next season. In a conference call with reporters, Trump commented: "I want to ride off into the sunset. I love building great buildings [and] this is time-consuming." Later, he remarked: "I'm not going to be on the show forever, and hopefully someone will be able to replace me who will carry it to - I can't say greater heights because I don't think it can go on to greater heights - but equal heights, or maybe lesser heights. At some point, I'm going to go off into the wilderness. ... This is not my business."

Ted Turner, who has received the Rodney Dangerfield treatment from the business community in recent years, was exalted by some of the most famous movie stars of yesteryear Wednesday as he was celebrated with a star on Hollywood Boulevard's Walk of Fame. Among those applauding him were Esther Williams, Margaret O'Brien, Betty Garrett, and Ann Rutherford. Many of them expressed appreciation for reviving interest in their films by restoring and replaying them on his Turner Classic Movies cable channel. Turner, 65, a man who is seldom at a loss for words, told the octogenarian stars: "I'm almost at a loss for words. ... I love show business." As for that other business, Turner had little to say. "I've been kind of squeezed out of Time Warner," he remarked to reporters, but declined to discuss the company further. "I'm in the restaurant business now [Ted's Montana Grill]. I'm also working on world peace ... in my spare time."

Former ABC newsman Jack Smith, who won a host of awards during 26 years of reporting for the network, has died of pancreatic cancer at age 58. Smith was the son of former ABC News anchor Howard K. Smith, who died in 2002 at age 87.