Theater owners and 20th Century Fox discovered over the weekend that Santa Claus doesn't come from the North Pole but from Kazakhstan, that he doesn't wear a beard but a mustache, and that his name is not really Tim Allen but Sacha Baron Cohen. Cohen's Borat rang up an estimated $26.1 million at the box office despite playing in just 837 theaters -- that's $31,500 in each theater. By contrast Allen's The Santa Clause 3, which finished in second place, took in $20 million on 3,458 screens -- or $5,780 per screen. Most analysts -- and tracking surveys -- had predicted that the Disney film would be the big winner at the box office. Some industry observers questioned the wisdom of Fox's decision to cut back on the number of theaters showing Borat following poor tracking surveys. In an interview with today's (Monday) Los Angeles Times, Borat producer Jay Roach commented, "It's amazing that tracking is so important to the industry when it's frequently way off." The movie faces weak competition next week when it is scheduled to expand. Meanwhile, the animated Flushed Away performed better than expected, placing third with about $19.1 million and giving Aardman Animation its biggest opening ever.

The top ten films for the weekend, according to studio estimates compiled by Exhibitor Relations: 1. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, $26.4 million; 2. The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause, $20 million; 3. Flushed Away, $19.1 million; 4. Saw III, $15.5 million; 5. The Departed, $8 million; 6. The Prestige, $7.8 million; 7. Flags of Our Fathers, $4.5 million; 8. Man of the Year, $3.8 million; 9. Open Season, $3.1 million; 10. The Queen, $3 million.

Pedro Almodóvar's Volver also created a sensation over the weekend, generating $202,000 in just five theaters. The film received six nominations Saturday for the European Film Awards, tying with Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's The Lives of Others for the most nods. (Winners will be announced during ceremonies in Warsaw, Poland on Dec. 2.) Volver received rhapsodic reviews from critics on Friday. "What a joy to be alive and well and going to the movies during the prime of Pedro Almodóvar," enthused Jan Stuart in Newsday."One of the year's most delectably twisted treats" is the way Jack Mathews described it in the New York Daily News. Claudia Puig in USA Today hailed it as "suspenseful, clever, gently funny and always emotionally resonant." Much of the praise fell at the feet of Penélope Cruz. Carina Chocano wrote that she instills in her character "an awesome resoluteness and strength of character." And Lou Lumenick in the New York Post commented, "Volver is the best thing to happen to Penelope Cruz since she broke up with Tom Cruise."

Margot Kidder, who played Lois Lane in Superman II, has given a thumbs up to the Richard Donner cut of the film, which is being released on DVD on Nov. 28. Following a screening of the film on Thursday night, Kidder told Home Media Retailing Magazine,"I think this is such a better version of Superman II. ... It's night and day." Kidder told a panel discussion at the Directors Guild that after Donner was fired by the film's producers and replaced by Richard Lester, most of the script was rewritten and reshot. She said that she and co-star Christopher Reeve "were really pissed off [over the changes]. He was a little more political about it." On the other hand, she said, she gave a magazine interview in which she remarked that "the producers were beneath contempt." As a result of her comments, she said, "I ended up having 12 lines in Superman III."

French conglomerate Vivendi, which nearly collapsed under the weight of debt after it acquired Seagram's entertainment assets for $30 billion in 2000, is now considering selling itself, published reports indicated over the weekend. Reuters reported that Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. had approached Vivendi with an offer to buy the company for $51 billion but that the talks got nowhere. The New York Times reported on Saturday that the talks appeared to have stalled -- even though the offer was reportedly the biggest of its kind in history. Today's (Monday) issue of the Times, citing people involved in the talks, reported that it was Vivendi that invited KKR to make an offer, "opening the possibility that the company could welcome discussions with other suitors." Vivendi, which sold 80 percent of its stake in Universal Pictures to GE two years ago, retained ownership of Universal Music, the world's leading record company, and the French film and satellite TV company Canal Plus. It also owns the French mobile phone company SFR.

Sunday Night Football registered its biggest audience of the season as the Indianapolis-New England contest scored an average 14.9 rating and a 22 share Sunday night. Nevertheless, it was not enough to beat ABC's Desperate Housewives, which, thanks to a supermarket-shootout storyline, drew the best ratings of the night -- and probably the week -- with a 15.0/21, according to the overnights. Earlier in the evening an overrun of athe afternoon NFL contest gave CBS the lead at 7:00 p.m. with a 14.0/22 in the first half hour, followed by a 12.2/18 for the beginning of 60 Minutes in the second half hour.

Fox news anchor Brit Hume has expressed concern about the ability of the traditional news media to compete effectively against the Internet over the long haul. In an interview with Broadcasting and Cable, Hume remarked that "the glory days" of the nightly network newscasts are over. "The question is whether our glory days are past, too, all cable channels, because of the Internet." (In a related story, rival CNN is making its CNN Pipeline video service available for free today only so that Internet users can sample its online reports about the final day of the off-year elections.) Hume blamed FNC's current ratings decline on the fact that "the news this year has been less compelling." Nevertheless, he said, Fox News chief "Roger Ailes is pretty agitated" over the down trend. "Roger is an extremely competitive man. Roger doesn't just want to beat the competition, he wants to fling them down and dance on them. Roger is ferociously competitive. I like that attitude," Hume said.

Surprising analysts, Wal-Mart is slashing prices of HDTV television sets well before the Christmas-season discount wars ordinarily begin. The company said on Friday that it has cut the price of its RCA 32-inch LCD set to just $847. The Polaroid 37-inch set, which had been priced at $1,297, was cut to $997. And the price of the Panasonic 42-inch set was cut $500 from $1,794 to $1,294.

NBC is planning to carry as many hours of Olympics coverage on its Internet site as it will on its broadcast and cable outlets in 2008, NBC Universal Sports Chairman Dick Ebersol has told Advertising Age magazine. "We're not prepared to make the hard announcement, but we'll be in a position to live-stream between 800 and 1,000 hours of coverage in addition to 800 hours on cable and 200 hours on the network," Ebersol said. He added that no decision has been made about whether to make the Internet coverage available on a subscription basis or to sell it to advertisers.

Impatient with the progress it is making in developing its online businesses, CBS announced Sunday that it has hired former Allen & Co. exec Quincy Smith to oversee its interactive strategy. He will replace MarketWatch founder Larry Kramer, who will remain with the company as a consultant. Smith reportedly has been charged not only with extending the company's current online operations but also with seeking out entrepreneurs and looking for potentially lucrative startups in which to invest. However, in an interview with today's (Monday) New York Times, CBS CEO Les Moonves said that the company has no intention of making costly acquisition. "We are not going to spend $1.6 billion on YouTube. We are looking for the next YouTube and Quincy knows all the players."

Ellen Burstyn claims that she was utterly bewildered when she was informed early this year that she had been nominated for an Emmy for a cameo role that lasted 14 seconds in the HBO film Mrs. Harris. "When they told me I was nominated for that I went, 'What, are you kidding?'" Burstyn said in an interview with A.P. Radio. Nevertheless, she added, "I thought it was fabulous. ... My next ambition is to get nominated for seven seconds, and, ultimately, I want to be nominated for a picture in which I don't even appear."