The low-budget Meet the Spartans, a spoof of last year's 300 from Warner Bros., earned as much as it cost to produce at the domestic box office over the weekend, taking in an estimated $18.7 million and edging out Rambo, from Lionsgate and the Weinstein Co., which finished in second place with about $18.2 million, according to box-office trackers Media by Numbers. The two films knocked last week's winner, Cloverfield to fourth place. After grossing $44.3 million over the four-day Martin Luther King Day holiday, Cloverfield garnered just $12.7 million in its second weekend, a 72-percent drop. It was beaten by the film it trounced a week ago, 20th Century Fox's 27 Dresses. Debuting in fifth place was Sony's Untraceable, which took in a better-than-expected $11.2 million. Continuing to amaze was Fox Searchlight's Juno, which passed the $100-million mark an upped its gross from last week despite losing some 100 theaters.

The top ten films for the weekend, according to studio estimates compiled by Media by Numbers: 1. Meet the Spartans, $18.7 million; 2. Rambo, $18.2 million; 3. 27 Dresses, $13.6 million; 4. Cloverfield, $12.7 million; 5. Untraceable, $11.2 million; 6. Juno, $10.3 million; 7. The Bucket List, $10.2 million; 8. There Will be Blood, $4.9 million; 9. National Treasure:Book of Secrets, $4.7 million; 10. Mad Money, $4.6 million.

Daniel Day-Lewis received the top award for male movie actors at the Screen Actors Guild awards ceremony Sunday night for There Will Be Blood -- and dedicated the award to the late Heath Ledger. "For as long as I can remember, the thing that gave me a sense of wonderment and renewal," Day-Lewis said in accepting the award, "has always been the work of other actors. Heath Ledger gave that to me." Julie Christie won the best actress award for Away From Her, while the best ensemble award went to the stars of the Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men. On Saturday, No Country received the top award from the Directors Guild of America. The following day the DGA's board of directors voted unanimously to recommend that members ratify its negotiators' deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and TV Producers.

Untraceable , which had been expected to take in less than $10 million, turned out to be a pleasant surprise for Sony. So, too, possibly were the handful of solid reviews the film garnered from several critics on Friday. (Most despised it.) Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert (who wrote his review of the movie before entering the hospital last week for surgery to correct damage that had resulted from previous operations last year) described it as "a horrifying thriller, smart and tightly told, and merciless." Ann Horniday credited Diane Lane's performance for pulling it all off: "An otherwise slick, well-crafted police procedural, Untraceable dabbles in the kind of torture porn that has made movies like Saw and Hostel such hit franchises with the very teenagers Lane's career has so triumphantly defied." On the other hand, Joe Morgenstern wrote in the Wall Street Journal:"This joyless thriller runs the gamut from unconscionable through unwatchable to unendurable." Then there was Stephen Holden's curious review in the New York Times, which said, "You may view Untraceable, as I do, as a repugnant example of the voyeurism it pretends to condemn. Or you may stand back and see it as a cleverly conceived, slickly executed genre movie that ranks somewhere between Seven and the Saw movies in sadistic ingenuity."

Meet the Spartans was not screened for critics, who had to shell out hard cash for it at theaters over the weekend (if they bothered to catch it at all). Jeannette Catsoulis of the New York Times saw it at a theater seated near a group of sixth graders. She noted their reactions:"As various Spartans slipped one another the tongue (Eewwww!), a nipple clamp was ripped off with the nipple still attached (Aaarghh!) and the Spartans skipped into battle singing 'I Will Survive' (Huh?), I realized the kids had said it all." Gene Seymour in Newsday made the same point as the kids, saying that the movie "panders for cheap laughs at the expense of just about every vulgar excess in present-day pop culture." Mark Feeney in the Boston Globe wrote that Spartans was a late-night comedy-show sketch "dressed up in feature-length clothing. It's way too much of an OK thing."

A scene in a 2003 episode of NYPD Blue in which an actress's bare backside was visible could subject ABC to a $1.43-million fine. In its notice to the network, the FCC said that the program, which aired at 9:00 p.m. in the Central and Mountain time zones, violated the commission's rules against airing indecent programming between the hours of 6:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. when children are likely to be watching. "We find that the programming at issue is within the scope of our indecency definition because it depicts sexual organs and excretory organs -- specifically an adult woman's buttocks," the FCC said on Friday. "Although ABC argues, without citing any authority, that the buttocks are not a sexual organ, we reject this argument, which runs counter to both case law and common sense." ABC said immediately that it would appeal the ruling, saying that when the episode was broadcast, NYPD Blue "had been on the air for a decade and the realistic nature of its storylines was well known to the viewing public." Moreover, it said, the program was also broadcast with parental warnings and was "V-chip enabled." Dennis Franz, whose own backside was shown on an NYPD Blue episode in the series' second season, told the Hollywood Today website, "I loved the way they approached it. A little embarrassing to watch it with my daughter, but nevertheless it was one of the most memorable things on the show."

NBC has sued producer Dick Wolf, responsible for the Law & Order series, over a contractual dispute. The network has asked an L.A. Superior Court judge to decide just what Wolf, the executive producer of three Law & Order shows that air on the network, should receive if any of them is canceled.

Publisher Judith Regan, who had alleged that News Corp had launched a campaign to smear her following a dispute over her decision to publish a book by O.J.Simpson and to interview him for a TV special, has settled her $100-million lawsuit against the Rupert Murdoch-owned company. News Corp refused to publish the book or air the television show -- and subsequently fired Regan for instigating the project. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed. Among other things, News Corp had claimed that Regan had complained to a company attorney that she had become the victim of a "Jewish cabal." However, in announcing its decision to settle the matter with Regan, News Corp said, "After carefully considering the matter, we accept Regan's position that she did not say anything that was anti-Semitic in nature, and further believe that Regan is not anti-Semitic."

Many television executives acknowledge that -- regardless of how the writers' strike pans out -- there will be fewer pilots produced in future seasons and that most decisions on what to air will depend instead on the gut instincts of network executives. One unnamed studio executive told Saturday's New York Times: "We can't do any worse than we've been doing." Despite tens of millions spent on series pilots last year, he observed, "There were no big successes this season."

As of this week, there are no scripted television series remaining in production in Los Angeles, Daily Variety reported today (Monday), citing figures from Film L.A., an intermediary between film producers and permitting agencies. At the time of the writers' walkout in November, 52 shows were in active production. Nevertheless, the trade publication noted, feature-film production, which depends primarily on scripts that were already completed before the strike started in November, is up 31 percent over the same period a year ago.

The Disney Channel's High School Musical is about to hit the stage in London's West End, According to the BBC, the musical will open a 10-week run in June. Actors have not yet been cast. A road-show edition of the U.S. cable musical has also been making the rounds in the U.K. The BBC says that nearly $20 million in advance ticket sales has already been raked. in.