The critically acclaimed indie comedy Juno rocketed up the box-office chart to place second over the weekend, according to final figures released Monday by Media by Numbers. Although weekend studio estimates showed Warner Bros.' I Am Legend taking second place, official results showed Juno at No. 2 with $15.9 million and Legend at No. 3 with $15.7 million. Disney's National Treasure: Book of Secrets remained at the top of the list with $20 million.

The top ten films over the weekend, according to final figures compiled by Media by Numbers (figures in parentheses represent total gross to date): 1. National Treasure: Book of Secrets, Disney, $20,062,684, 3 Wks. ($170,870,795); 2. Juno, Fox Searchlight, $15,860,744, 5 Wks. ($51667586); 3. I Am Legend, Warner Bros., $15,717,458, 4 Wks. ($228,055,662); 4. Alvin and the Chipmunks, 20th Century Fox, $15,546,125, 4 Wks. ($176,283,861); 5. One Missed Call, Warner Bros., $12,511,473, (New); 6. Charlie Wilson's War, Universal, $8,106,250, 3 Wks. ($52,552,540); 7. P.S. I Love You, Warner Bros., $7,834,467, 3 Wks. ($39,202,724); 8. The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep, Sony, $6,230,489, 2 Wks. ($30,823,470); 9. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, DreamWorks/Warner Bros., $5,536,538, 3 Wks. ($38,608,100); 10. Atonement, Focus Features, $5,064,577, 5 Wks. ($19,155,607).

The gala ceremony that usually attends the Golden Globes awards announcements will be converted into a news conference this year, NBC announced Monday. With members of the Screen Actors Guild being urged by union leaders not to cross Writers Guild of America picket lines at the 65th Annual Golden Globes telecast, the network, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, and Dick Clark Productions decided to pull the red carpet out from under the telecast, so to speak. The WGA, suspecting that Sunday's news conference was a ploy to entice nominees to be on hand, said that it will go ahead with its plans to picket the Beverly Hilton Hotel, where the announcements of the winners will take place. NBC itself seemed to indicate that the news conference will be something other than the usual sort when it barred competing networks from covering it. Daily Variety, citing figures from the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp., said today (Tuesday) that the Golden Globes cancellation could cost the local economy upwards of $80 million. Beyond the direct losses are the intangible ones, the trade publication observed, including the loss of national publicity for the movies and TV shows that receive the awards.

The Coen Bros.' No Country for Old Men collected yet another best picture award Monday -- this one from the Broadcast Film Critics Association. At the group's 13th annual Critics' Choice Awards Monday night, No Country also picked up awards for best director (Joel Coen and Ethan Coen) and supporting actor (Javier Bardem). The group's trophy for best actor went to Daniel Day-Lewis for There Will Be Blood. Julie Christie won the best actress award for Away From Her. Amy Ryan won for best supporting actress for Gone Baby Gone.

Paramount sent out mixed signals at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas Monday about whether it will abandon the HD DVD format. Following word that Warner Bros. now intends to release high-definition movies exclusively in the Blu-ray format and a report in the London Financial Times that Paramount would make a switch to Blu-ray, the Viacom-owned studio issued a statement saying, "We are still supporting HD DVD." A short time later, however, it said that, unlike its competitors, it would not be making any announcements of future HD DVD releases at the show. In its report about Paramount's reported plans, the Financial Times observed, "Paramount joining the Blu-ray camp would leave HD DVD likely to suffer the same fate as Sony's now obsolete Betamax video technology, which lost out to VHS in a similar format war in the 1980s."

Jon Stewart became the first late-night TV host to express criticism of demands by the Writers Guild of America. Returning to the air Monday night without his writing staff, Stewart at one point ridiculed the WGA's demand to be paid for shows that are downloaded from the Internet. "If you download a show on an iPod, do you think people should get paid for that?" he asked. "If you were to walk [into] a Hickory Farm with cheese on a stick, you wouldn't pay for that. No -- that's promotional cheese. That's what a show on an iPod is, promotional cheese." On the other hand, Stewart also took several whacks at the producers and networks, noting, for example, that Viacom has sued YouTube for a billion dollars for unauthorized use of its shows. However, he then added, "If there were real money in the Internet, don't you think they would have gone with a believable figure?" At the end of the show, Stewart segued to Stephen Colbert, who seemed to be caught feeding his script into a shredder, destroying any evidence that he might be breaking strike rules against writing his monologue. Later, Colbert remarked that Barack Obama had said he would not appear on his program during the strike but that he has said that he wanted to talk to the leaders of Iran, North Korea and Syria. "He'll talk to them," Colbert scolded, "but he won't talk to me?"

Dexter, Showtime's popular series about a cop, played by Michael C. Hall, who "channels" his compulsive killer instincts into a secret life as a vigilante, will make its debut on CBS Television on Feb. 17. The corporate parent of both CBS TV and Showtime is CBS Corp. The cable TV series, which employs graphic sex and violence, will require heavy editing to comply with FCC rules for broadcast network television. It will mark the first time that an entire season of a cable TV series will be rerun on a broadcast network. On Monday Writers Guild of America officials observed that the show's writers will not be able to contribute to the editing and that the episodes will therefore have to be edited by production personnel who have little understanding of story development and exposition.

Dr. Phil McGraw, who touched off a round of public controversy over the weekend after he arrived at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles to visit Britney Spears, said Monday that he has decided to shelve a planned show about her. In an interview with the Associated Press on Monday, psychiatrist Dr. Jeffrey Sugar noted that while Spears may have been removed to the hospital involuntarily following a complaint by her former husband, Kevin Federline, "there's a difference between being detained involuntarily for psychological treatment and being forced to endure Dr. Phil involuntarily." In a statement posted on his website Monday, McGraw said that he had canceled the show "because the Spears situation is too intense at this time." He did not explain further. Dr. Richard Harding, professor of neuropsychiatry at the University of South Carolina, welcomed the decision. He told the A.P., "This isn't the time to be exploiting anybody and making examples out of anybody."

EchoStar's DISH Network plans to expand its ability to deliver high-definition channels to customers this year following the launch of three new satellites this year. The company said Monday that it will be able to offer 100 national channels in HD, up from the current 76, and add numerous local HD channels in some 100 markets, up from the current 65. Customers who sign up for the HD packages, which start at $10 per month for a package of 20 channels, will receive a free ViP722 HD digital-video recorder, three months' free programming, waived activation fees and nine free months of its DISH Home Protection Plan.