Without the distraction of last-minute Christmas shopping and family get-togethers, moviegoers returned to the theaters over the weekend to see the movies that they may have missed over last weekend's holiday. (No new movies opened wide.) The result was a second big weekend for Disney's National Treasure: Book of Secrets, which declined just 20 percent, to take in an estimated $35.6 million, bringing its 10-day total to $124 million. Surprisingly 20th Century Fox's I Am Legend for second place with $30 million in ticket sales. Legend placed third with $27.5 million, bringing its total to $194.6 million and putting it on track to cross the $200-million mark today (Monday), as moviegoers return to theaters on New Year's Eve. Charlie Wilson's War came in fourth with an estimated gross of $11.8 million. The film, which stars Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts and was directed by Mike Nichols, has been making steady progress since opening slowly last week. Widening its release to 998 theaters, Fox Searchlight's Juno placed fifth with $10.3 million, giving it a per-theater average of $10,321, a figure that exceeds the $9,290 per-theater average of Treasure. Perhaps even more impressive is the fact that the critically hailed There Will Be Blood, starring Daniel Day-Lewis, took in $185,525 in just two theaters -- that's $92,763 per theater. On the other hand, The Golden Compass and Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story fell out of the top ten faster than most analysts had thought possible.

The top ten films for the weekend, according to studio estimates compiled by Media by Numbers: 1. National Treasure: Book of Secrets, $35.6 million; 2. Alvin and the Chipmunks, $30 million; 3. I Am Legend, $27.5 million; 4. Charlie Wilson's War, $11.8 million; 5. Juno, $10.3 million; 6. Alien Vs. Predator: Requiem, $10.05 million; 7. The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep, $9.2 million; 8. P.S. I Love You, $9.1 million; 9. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, $8 million; 10. Enchanted, $6.5 million.

I Am Legend is proving to be as big a hit abroad as it has been domestically, raking in $46.1 million in 25 countries, Daily Variety reported today (Monday). The Will Smith movie was particularly impressive in Britain, where it launched with $21.8 million in 438 theaters -- or $49,772 per theater. In its second week overseas, Disney's National Treasure: Book of Secrets performed strongly, earning $21 million in 25 countries.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is attempting to prevent the sale of three Oscars that were awarded to Mary Pickford and her husband Charles "Buddy" Rogers, the Associated Press reported Sunday. Rogers's second wife Beverly had indicated that she intends to sell the statuettes, but the Academy claims that under its rules it has the right to buy them back for $10 each. A judge on Friday ordered mediation of the lawsuit. In 2004 another judge ruled that the academy had no right to the Oscar that Orson Welles received for Citizen Kane, thereby allowing his daughter to proceed with a sale of the statuette. Pickford won a best actress Oscar in 1930 for Coquette and an honorary Oscar in 1976. Rogers received an Oscar for humanitarian work in 1986.

China's state-run Administration of Radio, Film and Television has warned Chinese film directors and studios that they will be subject to the "heaviest punishment" if they include erotic scenes in their features. "Violating studios might face the harshest punishment of revoking permits for shooting films," it added. Moreover, the censorship body warned, any film director submitting movies with erotic content to overseas film festivals could be subjected to a five-year ban from the movie industry, according to Beijing News. The newspaper listed the following banned content: rape, whoring, obscene sex exposing human genitals, or sex freaks, vulgar conversations, nasty songs and sound effects with sexual connotation. The director Ang Lee recently recut his film Lust, Caution for Chinese consumption to conform to state rules regarding erotic subject matter.

The Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers claimed Friday that the eight-week-old strike by members of the Writers Guild of America has already cost the writers more than what the guild has asked for in negotiations. The guild has calculated that its demands for increased residuals from Internet distribution of programs and movies will cost the industry $151.2 million over three years. In a statement, the AMPTP said, "The strike continues because the union's leaders are focused on jurisdictional issues that would expand their own power, at the expense of the new media issues that working writers care most about." The studios and networks have insisted that the WGA remove their insistence on representing writers of animated and reality fare before they will resume negotiations. The WGA responded: "The media conglomerates know that the core issue in these negotiations is new media. Their current proposals would cause writers even more economic harm in the future than they claim this strike has caused."

Following a deal that appeared to raise more questions than it answered, David Letterman's production company and the Writers Guild of America said Friday that Letterman's Late Show will be able to return to the air on Wednesday with its original writers and that Craig Ferguson's Late, Late Show will be allowed to do the same. Both shows are produced by Letterman's Worldwide Pants company. According to news reports, negotiators for Letterman agreed to accept proposals presented by the WGA to the AMPTP before negotiations broke down, including a new residual formula for Internet replay of his programs. Precise terms were not disclosed. But questions immediately arose as to how residual payments will be calculated given the fact that the two programs, while produced independently, are distributed and sold on the Internet by CBS. For its part, CBS said, "CBS controls the Internet exploitation rights for both programs, and will comply with any eventual negotiated agreement between the AMPTP and the WGA" -- a statement apparently meant to imply that the writers have gained nothing from the deal. On the other hand, news reports suggested that the deal will put extraordinary pressure on NBC and ABC to settle the strike since Letterman will now have the advantage of not only being able to present his shows with a full complement of writers but also will be able to attract celebrities who may be reluctant to appear on programs that remain struck. There was no suggestion that CBS would decline to broadcast the new Letterman shows. (Oddly, Daily Variety's online report about the WGA-Letterman deal was datelined Baghdad.)

Saturday's simulcast of the New York Giants/New England Patriots football game attracted a total of 34.5 million viewers over all of the networks and local stations that carried it -- the most to watch a regular-season NFL game since 1995, according to Nielsen Research. The Nov. 23, 1995 game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Dallas Cowboys game averaged 35.7 million viewers. Nevertheless, with some analysts predicting Super Bowl-like audience figures for the game, which put the Patriots' perfect-season record on the line, Saturday's number was actually somewhat disappointing. "Let's put that number in perspective," wrote New York Times TV sports columnist Richard Sandomir. "It required six channels in prime time to surpass the 33.8 million who watched the Nov. 4 Patriots-Colts afternoon game on CBS." (Sandomir strongly criticized Bryant Gumbel's play-by-play commentary.)