Star Wars: Episode II -- Attack of the Clones took in far less at the box office on Sunday than the studio had estimated -- $6.2 million less. Twentieth Century Fox executives were at a loss to explain the huge drop -- 21 percent -- from Saturday to Sunday, particularly given the fact that in 1999 ticket sales for The Phantom Menace dropped less than 10 percent on the first Sunday. (Some analysts had expected the box office actually to exceed the 1999 result, since Monday was a holiday in Canada.) With ticket sales close to record levels, analysts were reluctant to suggest that the drop-off might have been due to poor word of mouth. Several other films also earned somewhat less than expected, crushing earlier assumptions that the box office had set an all-time record for the weekend.

The top ten films over the weekend, according to final figures compiled by Exhibitor Relations (figures in parentheses represent total gross to date): 1. Star Wars: Episode II -- Attack of the Clones, 20th Century Fox, $80,027,814, 1 Wk. ($110,169,231); 2. Spider-Man, Sony, $45,036,912, 3 Wks. ($285,573,668); 3. Unfaithful, 20th Century Fox, $10,013,104, 2 Wks. ($29,535,202); 4. About a Boy, Universal, $8,557,630, (New); 5. The New Guy, Sony, $6,478,078, 2 Wks. ($17,305,157); 6. Changing Lanes, Paramount, $3,106,537, 6 Wks. ($61,563,318); 7. The Scorpion King, Universal, $2,912,675, 5 Wks. ($85,191,780); 8. The Rookie, Disney, $1,727,205, 8 Wks. ($70,510,783); 9. Murder By Numbers, Warner Bros. $1,672,454, 5 Wks. ($29,911,694); 10. My Big Fat Greek Wedding, IFC Films, $1,135,207, 5 Wks. ($5,669,706).

Kathleen Kennedy, whose credits include E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, Jurassic Park, and The Sixth Sense, has been reelected president of the Producers Guild of America. She had served as co-president (with Tim Gibbons) since last year.

An audience at the Palais des Festivals in Cannes greeted a 20-minute presentation of Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York enthusiastically Monday night. Introducing the highly anticipated film, which stars Cameron Diaz and Leonardo DiCaprio, Scorsese told the audience, "Ultimately this picture asks the question, What is America and what is an American?" Indirectly responding to reports that he had been constantly reshooting scenes and otherwise tinkering with the film -- and that its budget had consequently skyrocketed (supposedly infuriating Miramax chief Harvey Weinstein) -- Scorsese said: "When you edit the stuff, you discover things you needed. Harvey Weinstein was good enough in the final analysis to turn around and say, 'Listen, you need two days for some pickup shoots, go ahead and shoot -- get what you need.'" Later, he said of Weinstein: "Filmmaking is always a battle, a struggle, but he's been supportive and enthusiastic, and he wants to make my movie." For his part, Weinstein remarked that Gangs is "real art, unlike half the sh** in this God damned Hollywood."

Guy Pearce (L.A. Confidential, Memento, The Time Machine) has lashed out at the Screen Actors Guild's Global Rule One, which orders members of the union not to accept work in productions outside the U.S. unless they are paid in accordance with SAG contract conditions. In an interview with Melbourne's The Age newspaper, Pearce, who is a member of both SAG and its Australian counterpart, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA), remarked that SAG's edict is "almost bullying behavior." If applied to actors like himself who work in both Australian and American movies, Pearce noted, Global Rule One would prevent them from making films in their own countries for producers who can't afford the kind of budgets that Americans can. "If SAG is talking about having a stronghold over purely Australian films, then my reaction is, well, go away," Pearce said.

CBS season-enders beat out NBC's reality and nostalgia shows Monday night. A one-hour King of Queens averaged an 8.9/13 at 8:00 p.m., edging out NBC's Fear Factor, which averaged an 8.6/12 over 90 minutes. CBS's Everybody Loves Raymond concluded its season on a high note, earning a 13.8/19 at 9:00 p.m., beating the last half-hour of NBC's Fear Factor and the series finale of Fox's Ally McBeal, which scored a strong 8.5/12. At 9:30 p.m., CBS's Becker, with an 11.4/16 easily outscored the first half-hour of NBC's "20 Years of Must-See-TV," which averaged an 8.3/12. CBS faltered at 10:00, however, drawing a 7.9/12 for its magazine show, 48 Hours. Overall, CBS won the night with a 9.8/14. NBC was second with an 8.5/12. Fox followed with an 8.2/12, while ABC (with the movie Enemy of the State) was fourth with a 7.7/11.

ABC News President David Westin gave special praise to the network's news anchor, Peter Jennings, Monday when he accepted a Peabody Award for ABC's coverage of the Sept. 11 events. Reporting on Westin's comments, the trade publication Broadcasting & Cable observed on its website that they "wouldn't seem unusual at all except that there have been reports that in negotiating a new contract for Jennings, ABC has suggested cutting his pay, and in that context, the Westin remarks seemed to have been a public way of defusing the rumor." ABC also received a Peabody Award for Nightline with Ted Koppel. In an interview with the Dallas Morning News, Koppel paraphrased Winston Churchill, who famously remarked in a book recounting his experience as a war correspondent covering the Boer War in 1899: "There is nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at without result." Asked about the show's two-year renewal, Koppel went on: "I don't think it's a stay of execution. ... They had what they saw as an extraordinary economic opportunity to hire David Letterman and increase their income practically overnight at a time when the network as a whole is not doing well financially. I had no trouble with that. I can't say I like it, but I understand it."

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear an appeal by EchoStar of a lower-court ruling upholding a law barring satellite companies from transmitting signals of network affiliates outside their local market. NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox had pushed for the law, part of the 1998 Satellite Home Viewer Improvement Act.

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, who became a billionaire by selling his Broadcast.com to Yahoo when the Internet bubble was floating high, has become involved in a nasty feud with a senior editor of Dallas's D magazine. The current issue of the magazine carries a transcript of a phone conversation between Cuban and D's Tim Rogers in which Cuban, citing security concerns, threatens to "come and slice your [f***ing] nuts off" if he mentions the name of his fiancée, 29-year-old Tiffany Stewart, in the magazine, then goes on to say: "I will call every advertiser you have. If there's somebody that I know that buys advertising, I will tell them to yank it if they want to do any business with me, because that's how important this is to me. Because if you f*** with me, I will f*** you right back." Excerpts from the conversation, which Rogers recorded, were published in today's (Tuesday) Dallas Morning News and the New York Post.

Ending a rocky marriage that produced the near-stillborn XFL football league, Vince McMahon's World Wrestling Entertainment announced Monday that it has bought back NBC's stake in his company for $27.7 million.

Los Angeles anchorman Jerry Dunphy, 80, a veritable local institution, died in Los Angeles Monday following a heart attack. Dunphy, whose annual salary was reported to be $1.5 million, was believed to be the highest-paid local anchorman in TV history.