New Line's Fracture, starring Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling, couldn't break Disturbia's hold on the top spot at the box office over the weekend. Disturbia, starring Shia LaBeouf, dropped a relatively moderate 39 percent in its second week to $13.5 million, while Fracture opened with $11.2 million. But the most successful film over the weekend was the low-budget British spoof Hot Fuzz, which opened in only 825 theaters but grossed $5.8 million -- an average of $7,062 per theater. Another new horror film, Vacancy, fell far short of expectations, taking in just $7.6 million to open in fourth place. Even worse was the debut of In the Land of Women, starring Adam Brody and Meg Ryan, which tanked with just $4.9 million. Meanwhile, Blades of Glory, starring Will Ferrell, topped the $100-million mark, placing third in its fourth weekend with $7.1 million. Overall, ticket sales at the North American box office were down 22 percent from the comparable weekend a year ago.

The top ten films for the weekend, according to studio estimates compiled by Media by Numbers: 1. Disturbia, $13.5 million; 2. Fracture, $11.2 million; 3. Blades of Glory, $7.8 million; 4. Vacancy, $7.6 million; 5. Meet the Robinsons, $7.1 million; 6. Hot Fuzz, $5.8 million; 7. Are We Done Yet?, $5.2 million; 8. In the Land of Women, $4.9 million; 9. Perfect Stranger, $4.1 million; 10. Wild Hogs, $2.9 million.

An independent film producer who attempted to auction distribution rights to his film on eBay instead of taking it to the traditional film markets has acknowledged he received not a single bid. Neil Schulman had placed his film, Lady Magdalene's, starring Nichelle Nichols of Star Trek fame, on eBay with a starting bid of $1 million. However, Schulman said in a statement, no producer even asked to view the complimentary DVD screener, "and who's crazy enough to bid a million bucks based on a plot synopsis and a YouTube trailer?" Schulman said that his tactic did generate "a publicity bonanza" for his film that he hopes to capitalize on at future film markets.

In what was regarded as a first at a movie-awards ceremony, the presenter of the best film at the MTV Russia Movie Awards Thursday night refused to announce the winner. Director Vladimir Menshov, a onetime winner of the Oscar for best foreign film, opened the envelope with the name of the film, gasped, then declared, "I'm not going to hand over an award to a film that discredits my country. Let Pamela Anderson do it instead." (Anderson had also participated in the awards show.) The winning film, the World War II drama Svolochi (Bastards), directed by Alexander Atanesyan, had set off a national controversy when it was released last year. The film tells of a group of teenage prisoners who are sent on a suicide mission behind German lines. The director had initially claimed that the film was based on actual events but was later forced to admit it was invented after critics demanded that he produce evidence that the Soviet Union willingly sacrificed children in order to win the war.

A Singaporean film was withdrawn from the Singapore International Film Festival (SIFF) after the country's censors demanded that graphic homosexual lovemaking scenes be cut. A festival spokesman said that under SIFF rules, only uncensored films may be shown. The film, Solos, was to have been screened on Wednesday. In an interview with the Associated Press, producer Florence Ang said that she had expected that the Singapore government would require some cuts when it is released commercially in the country but that she had not expected that the censors would require them for a film festival, which caters to a limited audience. The A.P. observed that in Singapore, sex between consenting homosexual men is punishable by imprisonment of up to two years. Princess, an animated Danish film, was also withdrawn from the festival after Singapore censors deemed it religiously offensive.

The decision by Thai director Apichatpong Weerasetthakul not to allow his critically praised Syndromes and a Century to be screened in Thailand after censors there demanded that four scenes be removed could lead to changes in the law that would replace the censorship board with a ratings system, published reports in Bangkok said today (Monday). Apichatpong said in a statement Sunday that the censorship board had refused to return the print of the film he had submitted and that it would make the cuts itself. As a result, the Thai Film Foundation, the Thai Film Directors Association and Bioscope magazine posted a petition online demanding "the complete overhaul" of the 1930 law that established the censorship board. The controversy arose as Apichatpong was touring the U.S. to promote his film, which David Ansen of Newsweek said "sent me out into the streets in a state of euphoria I couldn't properly explain." In a review posted on the Newsweek website Saturday, Ansen wrote: "For those seeking a palette cleanser after a steady diet of Hollywood 'product, ' it's as invigorating as a perfect sorbet."

For its in-flight movie presentation, British Airways has removed a scene showing Virgin boss Richard Branson passing through an airport security scanner in the James Bond flick Casino Royale and also obscured the tail fin of a Virgin Airlines plane in another scene, the BBC reported Saturday. BA and Virgin compete on several air routes. The cuts were confirmed by British Airways, which said through a spokesman, "We do reserve the right to edit films, and many films are edited in some way on board."

CBS executives have concluded that the decision to install Katie Couric as the anchor of the CBS Evening News was "an expensive, unfixable mistake" and that they plan to replace her probably after the 2008 presidential elections, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported today (Monday), citing unnamed CBS sources. The newspaper quoted a veteran CBS correspondent as saying, "It's a disaster. Everybody knows it's not working. CBS may not cut her loose, but I guarantee you, somebody's thinking about it. We're all hunkered down, waiting for the other shoe to drop." In an article bylined by Gail Shister, the former Inquirer TV columnist, another CBS staffer is quoted as saying, "From the moment she walked in here, she held herself above everybody else. ... CBS has never dealt in this realm of celebrity before." Nevertheless, CBS News president Sean McManus and Evening News executive producer Rick Kaplan denied that Couric's position is imperiled. "There is no one, no one, wringing their hands around here," Kaplan said. And Couric herself once again pleaded for patience. In an interview with the Chicago Tribune's Phil Rosenthal, she said, "These things build slowly," adding that she's "Kind of circumspect and sanguine about the whole thing."

The venerable Hallmark Hall of Fame produced strong ratings for CBS Sunday night with the made-for-TV movie Crossroads: A Story of Forgiveness. While it was no match for ABC's Desperate Housewives, which drew a 10.5 rating and a 15 share in the 9:00 p.m. hour, it drew a respectable 7.0/11. At 10:00 p.m., however, it surged ahead, drawing a 7.5/12 and placing first in the hour, ahead of NBC's The Apprentice, with a 5.5/9 and ABC's Brothers & Sisters with a 5.2/8.

Bill O'Reilly has defended the decision by broadcast and cable news outlets to air the tapes sent by Cho Seung-hui to NBC on the day of his murderous rampage at Virginia Tech a week ago. Although many conservative commentators have expressed outrage at the networks for giving the killer the notoriety he apparently sought by murdering 32 fellow students and taking his own life, the Fox news commentator said in a statement posted on the cable news network's website: "Evil must be exposed, and Cho was Evil. You can see it in his face, hear it in his voice. All of us who saw the tape will never forget it. And it made me and millions of others angry. Once evil is acknowledged, steps can be taken to contain it. And once anger is in the air, policy can change." The conservative Fox commentator found himself allied with some of his usual media detractors. Commented the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz: "Had NBC suppressed the material, there would have been criticism about dereliction of duty. It was newsworthy, by any definition, and journalists sometimes must do unpopular things in the pursuit of news."

Bernard McGuirk, the longtime producer of Imus in the Morning, is the latest casualty of the controversial racial remarks that resulted in Don Imus's firing by MSNBC and CBS Radio. McGuirk, who exchanged racially tinged quips about the Rutgers women's basketball team with Imus, received his pink slip last Thursday, a spokeswoman for CBS Radio said Friday.

A group of British producers has complained to the BBC that the publicly supported TV network is giving undue promotion to Andrew Lloyd Webber's productions in London's West End. Like the U.S. TV show, You're the One That I Want, the BBC has held a talent contest to find a star for Lloyd Webber's revival of The Sound of Music and has announced plans for a similar show, Any Dream Will Do, to find the leads for Lloyd Webber's planned production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, which is due to open in July. The London Sunday Times reported that one producer wrote to BBC Controller Peter Fincham: "I asked if the BBC had looked for or considered other musicals which were not connected with Lloyd Webber."