Prom Night, which did not have a special screening for critics, drew the expected howls from them over the weekend when they viewed it with paying customers. In the New York Times, Jeannette Catsoulis concluded that the film "offers less gore than the average Band-Aid commercial and fewer scares than the elimination episodes of Dancing With the Stars." Jason Anderson in the Toronto Globe and Mail called it "a bland, timid and thoroughly un-thrilling teen thriller." Across town at the Toronto Star Peter Howell quoted a line from the film, "Donna, you gotta stop being scared, okay? Because there's nothing left to be scared of," then remarked, "Amen to that."

After months of frightful box-office performances by horror flicks, Sony/Screen Gems's Prom Night debuted with $22.7 million over the weekend at the high end of analysts' predictions. It was the best debut for a horror film this year. In second place was Fox Searchlight's R-rated Street Kings, starring Keanu Reeves and Forest Whitaker, which brought in an estimated $12 million. In its third week, 21 was still showing a strong hand as it took in $11 million. Everything else on the theater marquees looked weak, however, as the box office wound up with less revenue than it did a year ago for the fourth straight weekend. The top 12 films earned $82.6 million, more than 19 percent below what it took in during the comparable weekend last year. The fourth-ranked film, Fox's Nim's Island, brought in $9 million, while the George Clooney comedy Leatherheads rounded out the top five with $6.2 million. The only other film to open wide this weekend, Miramax's Smart People, wound up with $4.2 million, to place seventh.

The top ten films for the weekend, according to studio estimates compiled by Media by Numbers: 1. Prom Night, $22.7 million; 2. Street Kings, $12 million; 3. 21, $11 million; 4. Nim's Island, $9 million; 5. Leatherheads, $6.2 million; 6. Horton Hears a Who!, $6 million; 7. Smart People, $4.2 million; 8. The Ruins, $3.3 million; 9. Superhero Movie, $3.1 million; 10. Drillbit Taylor, $2.1 million.

Horton Hears a Who! remained at the top of the overseas box office during another lackluster weekend at theaters in most countries. Daily Variety reported that the animated feature took in $10.6 million at 5,300 theaters in 56 countries, or a modest $2,000 per theater. Its overseas gross has now crossed $100 million and stands at $104.9 million. Only two other films have hit the $100-million mark overseas this year, 10,000 BC and Jumper. Placing second was 21, which brought in $8.1 million. Continuing to amaze was the French film Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis, which brought in an additional $6.5 million in France, Belgium and French-speaking Switzerland, to raise its gross to more than $190 million and admissions to 18 million. It is aiming to overtake Titanic, which recorded 20.8 million admissions.

Presaging a day when hand-held media devices come preloaded with thousands of movies, videos and music tracks that can be individually unlocked by a code -- thereby eliminating the need for slow downloads -- scientists at IBM said on Friday that they had developed a new type of storage device capable of holding a hundred times more information than those in current use. Writing in the magazine Science, the scientists, who are based at the IBC research center in San Jose, CA, said that the device, smaller than those used in iPods, would be able to hold about 3,500 full-length films, and use so little power that it could run on a single battery charge for weeks at a time.

In an unexpected announcement Sunday night, The Screen Actors Guild, said that it had invited the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists to rejoin bargaining talks with the networks and studios, which are due to begin on Tuesday. The move came two weeks after AFTRA split off from SAG, accusing it of attempting to muscle in on its jurisdiction over actors working on daytime soap operas. An AFTRA spokesperson said that the union would not respond to the SAG invitation until today (Monday) at the earliest. Over the weekend the SAG leadership split over a proposal that would limit voting by members on a new contract to those who have worked at least one day in the prior year. The proposal was sent to a committee for study.

Studios may have announced plans to screen at least ten feature films in digital 3-D next year, but John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theatre Owners warned Sunday that there currently aren't enough theaters capable of showing them -- and there won't be until the studios and exhibitors reach some agreement on how to pay for digital projection equipment. Speaking at the Digital Cinema Summit at the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas, Fithian said that such an agreement must be hammered out within the next two months. Otherwise, he said, "we won't have time to do the installations in time." He added, "If the studios want this to happen in time for 2009, the deals have to be struck, and they have to be struck right now."

For the first time in memory, a show airing on the same night as American Idol drew a bigger audience than Idol. Nielsen Research reported Friday that CBS's CSI: Crime Scene Investigation drew 19.93 million viewers during the 9:00 p.m. hour Thursday versus 19.57 million for Idol during the 8:00 p.m. hour. The special "results" edition of Idol was pushed to Thursday by the previous night's Idol Gives Back special. It had no difficulty overcoming competition from CBS's Survivor: Micronesia, the usual winner of the time slot, which averaged 11.68 million. CBS held on to first place at 10:00 p.m. as 14.61 million viewers tuned in to Without a Trace, nearly twice the 7.59 million who watched second-place E.R.on NBC. On Sunday night, the return of Desperate Housewives with new episodes was the night's big winner with a 10.1 rating and a 15 share, representing 16 million viewers.

Katie Couric is considering an exit strategy in which she is weighing two options, a primetime cable show like Larry King's on CNN or a syndicated talk show, "probably along the lines of the more serious episodes of Oprah Winfrey's show," the New York Times reported Saturday. The latter alternative was deemed the least likely for success given the previous failure of Jane Pauley, another former Today show host, to make discussions of serious subjects palatable during the day. In any case, the newspaper said, Couric's departure is now being "treated as a given" in the TV news business and that it would likely come as early as next February. Meanwhile, the New York Post quoted TV insiders who floated the possibility of a "blockbuster trade" in which Anderson Cooper would switch from CNN to CBS to anchor the CBS Evening News, while Couric would move to CNN.

An uproar over the decision by staff members of the Dr. Phil show to bail out one of six teens accused of videotaping themselves attacking a fellow cheerleader may wind up shutting down the show, several reports indicated today (Monday). The girl, 17-year-old Mercades Nichols, was bailed out Friday night in return for her agreeing to an interview on Dr. Phil McGraw's talk show -- an act that was widely denounced as a violation of journalistic ethics. The show itself released a statement saying that while in the past it has helped guests when they needed financial assistance to come on the show, in this instance the staff members had gone "beyond our guidelines." It said that the staff members who had bailed out Nichol "have been spoken to and our policies reiterated. In addition, we have decided not to go forward with the story as our guidelines have been compromised."

Following two seasons in which his skills as a play-by-play announcer were increasingly criticized by sports writers, Bryant Gumbel announced Friday that he would not be returning to the NFL Network's telecasts in the fall. "I take comfort in knowing that I tried my best," he said. Asked whether he had asked for Gumbel's resignation, NFL Network chief Steve Bornstein told the New York Times,"What happened is we had a conversation and we agreed to go in different directions. It's really as simple as that."

Trevor Immelman's win at The Masters golf tournament on Friday was watched by more people than have ever tuned in to a golf tournament in cable-TV history, according to Nielsen Fast National results announced on Saturday. According to Nielsen, the telecast recorded 3.01 million household "impressions," while viewership of Master-related video on ESPN.com was up 117 percent over last year. In a statement, Billy Payne, chairman of the tournament and the Augusta National Golf Club, said, "We are very excited about both the broadcast and new media results from our initial domestic association with ESPN. This expanded reach, along with our other initiatives, significantly helps us with our goal of growing the game of golf."

The Catholic anti-abortion group American Life League charged Friday that Wednesday night's American Idol special Idol Gives Back charity special raised millions of dollars to fund groups "that promote immorality and abortion on demand." In a statement, the group said that while the program "on the surface" seemed motivated by good intentions, the money raised went in part to two groups, Save the Children and The Children's Defense Fund that support "family planning," a term, the ALL said, that is used as a code for "contraception, sex-ed programs, and abortion on demand."