20th Century Fox's PG rated animated feature Ice Age held on to second place and was still sizzling in its third week with an ESTIMATED $18.58 million (-38%) at 3,333 theaters (-12 theaters; $5,575 per theater). Its cume is approximately $117.3 million, heading for $150-175 million in domestic theaters.

Directed by Chris Wedge, it features the voices of Ray Romano, John Leguizamo and Denis Leary.

"People love it," Fox distribution president Bruce Snyder said Sunday morning, addressing the film's success. "It has just caught the public's fancy."

Reflecting on the strong March marketplace, Snyder pointed out, "It's the movies. It keeps expanding every time another quality picture's put in the marketplace."

Buena Vista/Disney's G rated family appeal baseball drama The Rookie opened in third place to a rousing ESTIMATED $15.8 million at 2,511 theaters ($6,283 per theater).

Directed by John Lee Hancock, it stars Dennis Quaid.

"I'm so pleased," Buena Vista Distribution president Chuck Viane said Sunday morning. "The filmmakers and Dennis Quaid have been so committed and have worked so hard on this movie. As you can see by the CinemaScores and [the grosses], the picture has played great. The word of mouth is terrific."

Focusing on the strong opening, Viane noted, "We've gotten Dennis the highest opening Dennis has ever had. And I don't think there's been a baseball movie that's ever done this kind of business."

Baseball doesn't typically hit a home run at the box office, Viane observed, but, "This one sure looks like we're going to get an inside the park one. It looks to me like we're going to have legs beyond belief. The CinemaScore numbers in all three [age] categories gave an A for the guys and for females it was A+ under-21, 21-34 was an A and 35-and-up was an A+. Those are very, very terrific responses from the public."

Buena Vista held 1,151 well-attended sneak previews of Rookie the weekend of Mar. 15-17. "I really believe that the impetus to having this kind of opening was to get the very positive word of mouth out there [through the sneaks]," Viane said.

"The picture scored one point higher with the public on opening weekend [than at the sneaks[, which means their anticipation was relatively high and we delivered on it. But, again, I don't think we'd get there without Dennis Quaid doing all that hard work [promoting the film]. To have a movie star so committed to going out and doing all the events is just terrific."

Asked what accounts for the strength the box office has shown the past three weekends, all of which have been in the $125-135 million range, Viane said, "I honestly think there's just a whole lot of really good movies out there right now. It is [a product driven business] and, obviously, the success of this particular time should spur the summer because everybody's seeing all those terrific new trailers for the summer product."