Looking ahead, Viane pointed out, "With Harry Potter coming into the marketplace this weekend (via Warner Bros.), audiences around the country are going to have some really great choices and business is going to be fabulous. Lines beget lines (at the box office) and that is go good for our business right now. I'm happy Harry Potter's coming. There's just something about the roll our business is on right now. I can see them opening up to record numbers--whatever that number is--and I've been around long enough to know there's room for two or three movies in the marketplace very easily. Nobody puts everybody (else) out of business."

Focusing on who is going to see Monsters, Inc., Viane observed, "The thing that is just probably the most complimentary thing that's happened to our movie is the tremendous adult interest (we're seeing). They're coming out at all those late evening shows. You don't do $20 million (as Monsters, Inc. did on Saturday) on matinees. There's no question we had another fabulous set of evenings. I would think today in L.A. will be something special simply because of the overcast day (on the weather front)."

Viane also emphasized the importance of Monsters, Inc. to the industry in terms of getting trailers for upcoming films seen by a huge audience. "You think about the number of really good movies that have trailers on the front of our movie," he said. "You're sitting there having 20 million (pairs of) eyeballs seeing something that they're going to want to come back in the next month or two to see again and that can only be good for all of us. You look at Snow Dogs, Harry Potter, Jimmy Neutron, The Rookie, (the reissue of) E.T. and Return to Neverland. They're all the beneficiary of their trailers playing on Monsters, Inc. and that's great news.

"And Harry Potter's going to do the same exact thing for everybody. Everyone who is lucky enough to get (a trailer) placed on the front of that picture is going to have a record number of people seeing it and whetting their appetites for the future. And that's what our business is all about."

20th Century Fox's PG-13 rated romantic comedy Shallow Hal arrived in second place to a deeply satisfying ESTIMATED $23.28 million at 2,771 theaters ($8,401 per theater).

Directed by Bobby Farrelly and Peter Farrelly, it stars Gwyneth Paltrow and Jack Black.

"Hal surpassed my expectations and my hopes," Fox distribution president Bruce Snyder said Sunday morning. "With Monsters, Inc. being monstrous in the marketplace to come in and do $23 million and change behind them is just great!"

When I reminded Snyder that late last week some insiders were projecting an $18-20 million opening for Shallow Hal, he replied, "I would laugh at them except I was saying the same thing. And tracking would even have indicated less than that. It could have been $16 million.

"The reality is that since Sept. 11 we really haven't been able to read tracking. It has been kind of false numbers. Monsters, Inc. should only have opened to $40 million if you went by the tracking (instead of $62.6 million). Right now, it's almost a frivolous question to ask somebody, 'Are you going to go to a movie this weekend?' with world conditions as they are. It doesn't mean that they're not going. It just means the question's a little strange. You almost feel silly saying, 'Oh, yeah, I can't wait to see Shallow Hal' rather than, 'Oh, my God, I hope they're not going to be bombing us.' But it doesn't change the fact that you're going to go (see a movie). It's a healthy marketplace."

Asked where Shallow Hal seems headed in domestic theaters given this strong start, Snyder said, "Certainly, $75 million. I'm looking at the bump from Friday to Saturday, which tells me something about playability. We were up 26 percent on opening weekend. That's very good. So I think we're in for a run."