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The Ring remained in the winners circle with $18.5 million, with no percentage drop at all from last weekend.

I Spy kicked off in third place to a disappointing $14 million.

Jackass: The Movie was still laughing in fourth place with $13.1 million.

Ghost Ship sailed into fifth place, down 43 percent with $6.6 million.

Also helping to boost this weekend's totals was Twentieth Century Fox's IMAX release of Star Wars: Episode II--Attack of the Clones with an out of this world $1.5 million. (For details, see OTHER OPENINGS below).

Key films were down about 18 percent from last year -- $114.6 million versus $139.9 million.

There also was record setting news on the home entertainment front as Sony Pictures Entertainment announced its DVD and videocassette release of Spider-Man had sold a projected 11 million combined units this weekend. Sony ESTIMATED Spider-Man will do a record setting $190 million in retail revenue in North America its first three days in the marketplace. (For details, see the related news story here.)

THE TOP TEN

Buena Vista/Disney's G rated comedy sequel Santa Clause 2 opened to a chart topping ESTIMATED $29.0 million at 3,350 theaters ($8,662 per theater).

Santa's average per theater was the highest for any film playing in wide release this weekend.

Directed by Michael Lembeck, it stars Tim Allen.

The original Santa Clause opened the weekend of Nov. 11-13, 1994 in second place to $19.3 million at 2,183 theaters ($8,851 per theater). It went on to gross $144.6 million in domestic theaters.

"It was one of those films that the theater manager grapevine had told us weeks and weeks ago that this was going to be a big hit," Buena Vista Distribution president Chuck Viane said Sunday morning about the sequel. "Inside the operations of all the theater chains, they knew it and they were prepared. We had great showtimes, multiple screens, more seats than you could imagine and it was a nice ride."

Asked about starting the holiday season as early as Nov. 1, Viane explained, "I think it's much like the summer season -- November being such a prolific grossing month that you can use any part of it to launch a movie. And for something like ours we had a movie that had great anticipation behind it. (The film) lived up to what the audience was looking for. The CinemaScores were all A (grades)and in our own college tracking we scored a 90. The original scored an 89.

"So people came in with some pretty high expectation and (Michael Lembeck) made a film that people loved. I think this is one of those roles Tim could do forever if he wanted to because the audience has a love affair with Tim in this love. He delivers. He makes you believe he's Santa Claus. But the nice part is, you can expand the (holiday) season much like early May is now the launch of summer. We believe that this (early November date) is just a logical launching pad for films for the holiday."

Asked about the eight year period between the original and the sequel, Viane replied, "The movie is a perennial bring-back every Christmas. People fall in love and watch it on TV or on their DVDs or whatever. All we did was bring what they were looking for (into theaters) and with a very smart and warm story, wonderfully delivered. These are the kind of weekends you look forward to."