Warner Bros.' hit movie 300 has become the latest powder keg in relations between the U.S. and Iran. The movie, which earned $71 million at the box office last weekend, is based on the ancient battle of Thermopylae in which, according to Western lore, a force of 300 Spartans held off thousands of Persian soldiers. As reported by the Associated Press, Javad Shamghadri, cultural adviser to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, charged that the film represented another effort by the U.S. to humiliate Iran in order to "compensate for its wrongdoings in order to provoke American soldiers and warmongers" against Iran. The independent newspaper Ayende-No, said beneath the headline, "Hollywood Declares War on Iranians," "The film depicts Iranians as demons, without culture, feeling or humanity, who think of nothing except attacking other nations and killing people. ... It is a new effort to slander the Iranian people and civilization before world public opinion."

Forty-eight of the 62 domestic IMAX theaters showing Warner Bros.' 300 last weekend set all-time ticket-sales records, with 57 theaters also reporting sell-outs, IMAX and Warner Bros. said Tuesday. The film, which commands premium prices on the super-sized IMAX screens, averaged $58,000 per screen. Moreover, the companies said, the movie posted an additional $700,000 -- or $11,300 per screen -- on Monday. In a statement, IMAX Filmed Entertainment Chairman and President Greg Foster said, "Our partnership with Warner Bros. Pictures and our teams' joint marketing and distribution efforts have resulted in more audiences wanting to experience the 300 fever in IMAX's immersive format, and based on what we're hearing from our theaters and the opening weekend results, word of mouth about this fantastic film is spreading quickly." Warner Bros. distribution chief Dan Fellman said that the studio was "beyond excited" by the results.

Brandon Routh, the actor who played Superman in last year's franchise revival Superman Returns, has indicated that the producers of the next sequel were sensitive to audience and critical complaints that the film lacked sufficient action sequences. In an interview with the online edition of Britain's Empire magazine, Routh said that the last man-of-steel movie was formulated so that it would show Superman's love for Lois Lane and villain Rex Luthor using that against him. "I just know that in the next film there will be a lot of action and I'm gonna get to fight something, or someone. An enemy with real physical power might be worked in there, definitely." Routh provided no details, saying only that the sequel was about to begin pre-production "so there's a lot of ideas in the air and a lot of discussion about what's going to happen with it. I promise a lot of excitement."

For the first time, a movie in a high-definition DVD format has broken into the top ten among best-sellers. Amazon.com said Tuesday that Sony's Blu-ray HD version of Casino Royale debuted at #8 on its list. The standard-definition/wide-screen version of the movie topped it. The full-screen version came in at No. 10.

Los Angeles police, who presumably were not alerted that a film shoot was in progress, rushed onto a Hollywood street last month and handcuffed actor Erik Palladino as he performed a scene using a prop gun in the movie Hotel California. A video of the arrest was posted Tuesday on the TMZ website. The celebrity gossip site reported that at the time of the arrest, director George Santini rushed onto the location scene and kidded Santini as he was being led away, "You gotta be on set tomorrow. That's what the contract says!" The crew explained to the officers that they were shooting a movie, and Palladino was released.

Industry analysts were waiting to see whether other media companies would follow Viacom's lead in suing Google subsidiary YouTube for copyright infringement or instead use the threat of legal action as leverage to create favorable partnerships with the popular video website. Even at major media companies themselves, there appeared to be disagreement in the ranks over how such video-sharing sites should be dealt with. In an interview with CNNMoney.com, Brian Wieser, a senior VP at media buyer Magna Global, observed, "Marketing people love YouTube and legal people hate it." Indeed, Paul Cappuccio, the general counsel for Time Warner, signaled Tuesday that his company may be considering similar action. "Time is up for YouTube," Cappuccio told the Wall Street Journal. "It's no longer permissible for them to have unauthorized copyrighted material on there." News Corp spokesman Andrew Butcher told Bloomberg News: "We have always been supportive of content companies protecting their copyright." However, several reports indicated that some media companies may be less inclined to sue because they may not wish to risk harming existing partnerships with Google. Nor is it clear that they'll win if they do sue. YouTube has said that it cannot be held responsible for what users post on its site and that it removes copyrighted material at the owner's request. "We are confident that YouTube meets and exceeds its legal responsibilities," Google attorney Alexander Macgillivray told today's New York Times. But in an interview with USA Today, Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman described Google/YouTube's course as "Take people's content and ask questions later." Viacom Chairman Sumner Redstone added in an interview with the Los Angeles Times: "Any company or any person who illegally misappropriates our product has to be stopped." Reporting Viacom's $1-billion lawsuit, the Baltimore Sun commented today: "The notion of the Internet as a free ride, a place in cyberspace where almost anything is available for nothing, might at last be put to a real test."

Once again, three nights of enormous ratings for American Idol put Fox well ahead on the Nielsen list for last week. Each episode of the show wound up at the top of the ratings chart. Moreover, two shows that followed them, House and Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?, placed fourth and fifth on the list. Fox wound up with an average 8.4 rating and a 14 share for the week. CBS, which offered mostly reruns against the Idol competition, settled for a 7.0/12. NBC finished fourth with a 5.1/8, while ABC trailed with a 4.5/7.

The top ten shows of the week according to Nielsen Research: 1. American Idol (Wednesday), Fox, 16.7/26; 2. American Idol (Thursday), Fox, 16.0/25; 3. American Idol (Tuesday), Fox, 15.9/24; 4. House, Fox, 14.1/22; 5. Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?, Fox, 11.8/18; 6. Deal or No Deal (Monday), NBC, 110./17; 6. Without a Trace, CBS, 110./18; 8. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CBS, 10.0/15; 9. CSI: Miami, CBS, 9.6/17; 10. Cold Case, CBS, 9.5/15; 10. Two and a Half Men, CBS, 9.5/14.

As the current American Idol contestants headed towards the final rounds, ratings for the show continued to soar Tuesday. The two-hour edition averaged an 18.2 rating and a 28 share (29.39 million viewers), with the final hour, beginning at 9:00 p.m., averaging a 19.3/29 (31.18 million viewers).

CBS Corp. has settled a shareholders' suit over executive compensation by agreeing to reduce Executive Chairman Sumner Redstone's annual salary to $1 million from $1.75 million and eliminate his current $1.3-million deferred compensation. Moreover his annual cash bonus will be cut to $3.5 million from $6.1 million. Redstone accepted the new terms apparently without condition, saying in a statement, "The pay-for-performance model is one I have long championed, as it more closely aligns executive compensation with the returns the company generates for its shareholders."

A morning anchor for ABC's flagship New York station, WABC-TV, was fired Tuesday after he reportedly did not show up on set during a Good Morning America station break Monday to plug upcoming coverage of a fire in the Bronx that killed 10 people. Several websites reported that Steve Bartelstein had fallen asleep in his office at the TV station. "It was a stunning move, considering that Bartelstein has been a major player on the station's top-rated early-morning newscast," the New York Daily News commented on its website.

Former CBS anchor Dan Rather has said that the strength of a network's news operation comes from the top. In an interview with CNET News.com, Rather said, "Good journalism, great journalism, starts with owners who have guts." He pointed out, however, that "it's increasingly hard for people in news to have any access to the top leaders of the giant corporations. But I think you have to work hard at it." He suggested that he himself had not worked hard enough to explain to network heads "what is is we do [and] why we do it" and, when it comes to investigative reports, "why it's in the company's interest, never mind the country's interest, to do it."