The U.S. weekend box office was lower than usual as more people stayed home to watch the Iraq conflict, the NCAA men's basketball tournament and the Academy Awards. Four new contenders couldn't take BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE away from its top position as the Buena Vista release stayed in first place for a third straight weekend taking in roughly $16.2M for $83.4M. DREAMCATCHER from Warner Bros. debuted at $15.3M.

Walt Disney Picture's gift for the start of spring and a safe film for parents to take their kids to is PIGLET'S BIG MOVIE, opening in theaters across America March 21, 2003. The second ever original animated Pooh feature created for the big screen, it follows in the successful footsteps of the 2001 release of THE TIGGER MOVIE. The Hundred Acre Wood characters have appeared in four previous theatrical featurettes, three Disney Video Premiere releases, four holiday-themed primetime television specials and two TV series.

CARTOON MOVIE, the only event dedicated to promoting European animated feature films, has nearly doubled in size in its five-year history. CARTOON MOVIE started on a positive note when organisers revealed that 1/3 of the projects presented last year are now in production with the required participants and funding. Started in 1998 with 255 professionals, the fifth edition of CARTOON MOVIE closed March 15, 2003 at Babelsberg Studios, in Potsdam, Germany with 461 attending, amongst them were 51 distributors and 61 investors.

BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE from Buena Vista stayed in top place for a second straight weekend taking in roughly $22.4M for $61.6M in just 10 days. The Frankie Muniz teen-spy flick AGENT CODY BANKS, with vfx by Pixel Magic and Eyetronics, debuted in second place with $15M. THE HUNTED (vfx supervisor was Eric Brevig, ILM did primary effects), bagged third place with $13.5M. TEARS OF THE SUN, with visual effects by ILM, dropped to fourth place with $8.8M and a $30.8M cume.

DreamWorks has signed David Diamond and David Weissman (THE FAMILY MAN), to write a yet untitled CG animated musical history of rock 'n' roll, it was reported by VARIETY and later confirmed by a DreamWorks spokesperson. Jeffrey Katzenberg and the writers came up with the concept as they worked together on the rewrite of DreamWorks' EVOLUTION. The project was then officially pitched to Katzenberg and DreamWorks' head of development Lance Young. No official release has been issued but the concept involves setting hit songs in rock history into a CGI format.

If you'd like to see all five Oscar-nominated animated shorts on the big screen you now can in select cities thanks to Apollo Cinema, an international shorts distribution company, that has packaged them into a compilaton package that premieres March 14, 2003 in Los Angeles and New York. The animated shorts have been combined with live-action short contenders into a single 91-minute program that will run daily for two weeks at the Laemmle Fairfax 3 in Los Angeles and the Two Boots Pioneer Theater in New York.

Is a trend and new opportunity for actors and agents underway as live actors are cast to be the animation reference for CGI characters staring in live-action motion pictures? Andy Serkis was the reference for the CGI creation Gollum in THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS. Now Alan Tudyk has been cast as the animation reference for the CGI character Sonny in the sci-fi action feature I, ROBOT for Twentieth Century Fox. AWN talked to a few agents and entertainment attorneys to get their views.

BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE from Buena Vista brought in an exceptionally big weekend box office debut for the month of March in North America. Taking in roughly $31.7M, it was the third best ever debut in March, behind 20th Century Fox's ICE AGE ($46.3) and New Line's BLADE 2 ($32.5M). TEARS OF THE SUN, with visual effects by ILM, debuted in second place with $17.2M while OLD SCHOOL, vfx by Gray Matter FX, slipped a notch to third place at $9.2M and a cue of $50.8.

Fast on the heels of the recent deal with producer Chris Wedge, Twentieth Century Fox Features has signed a multi-year exclusive deal with ICE AGE producer Lori Forte. Forte is developing several animated features for Fox and will serve as producer on a potential ICE AGE sequel. "Lori is a spectacular producer and a critical part of the future that we are building with Blue Sky," said Chris Meledandri, president of 20th Century Fox Animation, who announced Forte's deal. ICE Age is nominated for the Best Animated Feature film Academy Award.

Warner Bros.' hip hop King Fu actioner CRADLE 2 THE GRAVE (Bryan Hirota was vfx supervisor) debuted at the top of the weekend box office in North America, taking in $17.1M, followed by OLD SCHOOL, vfx by Gray Matter FX, holding at second place at $13.8M and a cume of $37.2M. DAREDEVIL, with primary vfx by Rhythm & Hues, Pixel Magic and Digital Domain, dropped to third pulling in an estimated gross of $11M, and a total of $84.1M. HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN 10 DAYS, with visual effects by Pixel Magic, dropped to fourth place taking in $10.1M and a $77.5M total.

Director Chris Wedge is on fire, signing a five-year, multipicture exclusive deal with 20th Century Fox that includes a potential ICE AGE sequel and a new film ROBOTS, it was announced Thursday by Chris Meledandri, president of Twentieth Century Fox Animation. Wedge is also receiving the first ever Animation Director of the Year Award at ShoWest during a gala Tuesday, March 6 in Las Vegas, Nevada and is nominated for an Oscar.

Constantin Film in Germany is driving the latest game-to-screen crossover, optioning the film and television rights to Infogrames' DRIVER video game franchise. Impact Pictures, a subsidiary of Constantin, is slated to start shooting the motion picture later this year. "This is a great opportunity to develop the extremely cool game character of Tanner into a very believable and iconic action movie hero," said Jeremy Bolt, the movie's producer. Tanner is an undercover policeman hired by the mob as a getaway driver. Bolt set up Impact Pictures with writer/director Paul W.S. Anderson.

SHREK producer John Williams and his company Vanguard Films will produce a live-action theatrical adaptation of children's book TED for Nickelodeon Movies, starring a CG-animated version of the lead character. Ted is the mischievous imaginary friend of a young boy in the book of the same name by best-selling author/illustrator Tony DiTerlizzi. Rob Moreland (HAPPILY EVER AFTER) is adapting TED for Vanguard and Greenlight Media. TED will be rendered entirely in CG amongst a live-action cast and environment.

Veteran animation director Ralph Bakshi (LORD OF THE RINGS, HEAVY METAL, COOL WORLD) is joining forces with REN & STIMPY creator John Kricfalusi to produce a slate of low-budget animated features aimed at adults, according to VARIETY. Both animators are known for locking horns with studio and network execs while creating some of the most influential animation productions. Bakshi and Kricfalusi plan to make animated features, costing under $10M, that are an alternative to the family slates at the majors.

Popular comic book cat and animated TV star GARIFELD will display his CGI stripes in a new live-action motion picture Twentieth Century Fox plans to release in U.S. theaters December 19, 2003. Peter Hewitt directs the picture, which is adapted from the syndicated cartoon strip created by Jim Davis and read in 2,600 newspapers by 260 million readers around the globe. The story starts as Garfield’s owner, Jon, takes in sweet but dimwitted pooch Odie, turning Garfield’s perfect world upside down.

DAREDEVIL managed to cling onto its top box office position at theaters in North America for a second weekend (primary vfx by Rhythm & Hues, Pixel Magic and Digital Domain), holding off a challenge from DreamWork's school party film OLD SCHOOL. The Marvel Comics blind superhero flick pulled in an estimated gross of $18.9M, and moved its estimated 10-day cume to a healthy $70.3M.

Moviegoers lifted DAREDEVIL out of relative comic book hero obscurity as the Twentieth Century Fox theatrical release starring Ben Affleck took in $43.5M, the biggest haul ever for a movie opening over Presidents Day weekend. Based on the Marvel Comics blind superhero, the film easily surpassed the previous best of $20.3M for last year's JOHN Q and was the second-best February debut ever behind HANNIBAL two years ago at $58M. Rich Thorne supervised visual effects for Fox with work done primarily by Rhythm & Hues, Pixel Magic and Digital Domain.