By Dean Goodman
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Millions of North American moviegoers spent the weekend ordering "Maid" service from Jennifer Lopez (news).The ubiquitous pop icon scored the biggest opening of her career as her romantic comedy "Maid in Manhattan" opened at No. 1 with ticket sales of $19 million for the three days beginning Dec. 13, according to studio estimates issued on Sunday.
The $55 million Cinderella film, in which "J.Lo" plays a hotel domestic who falls for a politician (Ralph Fiennes (news)), was among four rookies that crowded into the top five. Their arrival, just as schools are breaking for vacation, helped the business recover from last weekend's traditional post-Thanksgiving slump. "Maid" was released by Sony Pictures, a unit of Sony Corp (news - web sites).
Previous champion, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.'s James Bond thriller "Die Another Day," shared the No. 4 spot with Walt Disney Co.'s rookie comedy "The Hot Chick," both reporting $7.5 million. But the 20th official outing by Agent 007 now ranks as the highest grossing film in the 40-year-old franchise. Its four-week total climbed to $131.6 million, passing the lifetime total of 1999's "The World Is Not Enough" ($127 million).
Meanwhile, another sturdy franchise appeared to be losing some warp speed. "Star Trek Nemesis," the 10th movie in the sci-fi series opened at No. 2 with $18.8 million. But executives at the film's studio, Viacom Inc. -owned Paramount Pictures, had hoped for at least $20 million.
On the other hand, 20th Century Fox's urban comedy-drama "Drumline" opened at No. 3 with $13.1 million, far exceeding expectations. The $20 million film revolves around a hip-hop drummer in a marching band at a black college.
JACK'S BACK
In the art house world, the Jack Nicholson (news) black comedy "About Schmidt" began its trek with an impressive $283,000 from six theaters in New York, Los Angeles and director Alexander Payne's hometown of Omaha, Nebraska, where the film is set. "Schmidt," in which Nicholson plays a widower staring down death and disappointment, was on Saturday named best movie of the year by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association (news - web sites). It goes into wide release on Jan. 3 via New Line Cinema, a unit of AOL Time Warner Inc .
The top 12 films grossed $90.5 million, up 32 percent from last weekend and up 3 percent from the year-ago period, according to box office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations.
Upcoming bows are headed by the highly anticipated Wednesday opener "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers." Three films open on Friday: "Gangs of New York," a period epic starring Leonardo DiCaprio (news) and Daniel Day-Lewis (news); "Two Weeks Notice," a romantic comedy starring Sandra Bullock (news) and Hugh Grant (news), and the family cartoon "The Wild Thornberrys Movie."
J.LO DRAWS FEMALE FANS
Lopez' previous best opening was "The Cell," which kicked off with $17.5 million in 1999. Studio executives preferred to ascribe the new film's success to the film itself rather than publicity generated by Lopez's extracurricular activities, including her love life and a new album.
Sony Pictures Vice Chairman Jeff Blake praised the strong supporting cast (Fiennes, Bob Hoskins (news)), while Tom Sherak, a partner in the film's Sony-based producer Revolution Studios, said it was good escapist fun.
About 60 percent of the audience was female, but Blake said there was a wide spread of ages. He said the movie could end up with five to six times its opening sum.
As expected, males made up the bulk of the "Star Trek Nemesis" crowd -- about 64 percent, said Wayne Lewellen, Paramount's president of distribution. The film was modestly budgeted at just under $60 million, and executives are focused on a very profitable afterlife in home video.
"Drumline," starring children's TV personality Nick Cannon, enjoyed excellent exit poll results, said Bruce Snyder, Fox's president of distribution. About 60 percent of the audience was black, while the hip-hop music brought in the suburban crowd. The studio is a unit of News Corp.'s Fox Entertainment Group Inc .
"The Hot Chick," a lowbrow gender-reversal comedy starring Rob Schneider (news), came in at the lower end of expectations. But Disney executives, still reeling from the "Treasure Planet" flop two weeks ago, said it was a realistic number. About 70 percent of the audience was under 25, and the studio hopes the school vacation will boost sales in coming weeks.
place in outer space. He
pitched it to the networks as a way to bring new excitement to the public that
had been unseen. Unfortunately, his idea was turned down and "Lost in
Space" was put on the air instead, not to say that LIS was all bad.
After putting together a pilot with Jeffery Hunter as the captain of a starship
called Enterprise, NBC decided to go into producing a season's worth of shows
with a few changes. In September of 1966, NBC aired the Desilu produced
Star Trek starring William Shatner as James T. Kirk, Leonard Nimoy as the half
Vulcan Mr. Spock, and DeForest Kelley as Leonard "Bones" McCoy.
After three creatively amazing seasons, the poor ratings finally caught up with
the show and it was cancelled. And that is where is actually all
began. The ending of the show created a fan base that has put in several
billions of dollars into the coffers of 
Paramount Studios. In 1970, Star
Trek conventions sprouted up and the magic of
syndication kept the show alive in
reruns. A pretty decent cartoon showed up on Saturday mornings, and the
first United States space shuttle was named Enterprise in honor of the show's
primary means of transportation. In 1977, a little film called Star Wars
Episode IV: A New Hope came out and changed the face of cinema forever.
This gave the powers that be the idea that turning that old 1960s show about
space adventures into a full length feature film would be a success. In
1979, Star Trek: The Motion Picture was released, and despite its over abundance
of special effects overpowering the actors, it was a box office success. The
sequel, Star Trek II: The Revenge of Kahn was changed to The Wrath of Kahn when
Episode VI of Star Wars was going to be called Revenge of the Jedi. Star
Trek II became the best of the entire series as it brought back Kahn Noonian
Singh from the old tv series episode Space Seed. It also was the movie
that killed of Spock and Kirk gave his classic "his was the most...
human" speech. As I remember though, back in 1982, people were pretty
peeoed by the ending as Spock was the heart and soul of Star Trek.
Fortunately for the fans, no one really dies in sci fi as Star Trek III: The
Search For Spock revived the dead man. 
It also helped that Nimoy got to
direct that gave him more of a motive to return to the movies. Search for
Spock did kill off Kirk's son and destroyed Enterprise NCC-1701. Then in
1986, the most mainstream Star Trek movie was released, Star Trek IV: The Voyage
Home. The last two movies had caused a lot of problems that had to be
resolved in what could be considered part 3 of the Genesis Trilogy. A
probe had come to Earth to communicate, but their means of first contact was
going to destroy the planet if it was not stopped. It seemed that they
liked our humpback whales, but somehow did not get the memo that said that they
had become extinct a couple of hundred years ago and no longer lived in the 23rd
century. No problem, since Kirk has traveled back in time several times, a
trip back to modern day 1986 should be little problem. Just as long as he
does not fall in love with Joan Collins again, things should go fine. This
save the whales Trek is still the highest grossing movie in the decaology.
One did not have to be Trekkie or Trekker to enjoy the film. Enterprise
NCC-1701A debuted at the end, and Admiral Kirk was demoted back down to Captain
Kirk where he belonged and thrived. All was right with the world, at least
until Star Trek V: The Final Frontier directed by William Shatner himself was
released. This is considered to be the 
worst of the Star Trek
movies. The plot was concerned with Spock's long lost undiscovered brother
Sybok trying to find God. There were several things wrong with the movie
like the poorly received Sybok, campfire songs, bad production values, and poor
direction. This movie almost killed the franchise. However, I am one
of the very very few fans of this movie because of the classic Kirk line,
"what does God need of a
starship?" Part of the reason this
movie failed was that a lot of the planned segments were never filmed or edited
out of the film. But, Paramount and the fans did not want to go out on a
bad note, so Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country was released and became the
final voyage of the original crew of the Enterprise. This was a much
better effort and is pretty much the only movie that really stands on its own as
a great adventure where the Klingons and the Federation try to reach a peace
against those who want the war to continue. This was a fun movie and came
closest to feeling like the original shows. When this movie came out,
there was a new Star Trek series on the air with a brand new crew flying through
space a hundred years ahead of the original crew into the 24th century in the
Starship Enterprise NCC-1701D. Star Trek the Next Generation was coming
into its own with its own main characters and recurring villains like Q and the
Borg. Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean Luc Picard, Brent Spiner as the
android Lt. Commander Data, and Jonathan Frakes as Number One, Commander
Riker. Unlike the original series, Next Gen tried to give the main 8 of
the cast more to do. Dr. Beverly Crusher, Wesley Crusher, Geordie LaForge,
Deanna Troi, and Lt. Worf the first Klingon to be a member of a Federation
crew. Picard, Data, and Worf became the most popular stars and had the 
best storylines. Next Generation became the most popular Trek series ever
and ran for 7 years. After its very successful run, Star Trek VII:
Generations was released in 1994 and it had the original crew pass the
proverbial torch to the new crew with Captain Kirk teaming up with Picard to
defeat Malcolm McDowell's Soran. The final battle led to Kirk dying a bit
more finally than Spock did. Kirk has never returned to the movies, but if
you read some of the Star Trek novels, you will learn how Kirk was
revived. However, those stories don't really count, so Kirk is officially
still deceased as a character. Star Trek Generations was okay, but
disappointing, especially with another Enterprise being destroyed. A
couple of years later, Star Trek VIII: First Contact was released and despite
its continuity flaws is still the best of the Next Generation movies. Kahn
was the big villain of the original series that gave new life to the movies, and
the big bad baddies, the Borg were the foes of Picard and his crew. The
Borg put together a plot to go back in time to when Earth learned how to fly at
the speed of light in a space ship and stop that event from happening which
would give them the upper hand in defeating Earth in the future. There are
several problems with that scheme, but hey, it's sci fi, deal with it. The first
contact referred to Earth's first meeting with the Vulcans which if you watch
recent Trek stories, is no longer the whole story. This was an action
packed movie and the Borg have always been cool to watch. No one from the
original cast was in this, and Next Generation did quite well on their own and
this became the most successful movie of this cast. With the success of
this movie, the other Trek series on the air Deep Space Nine (which was
excellent), and Voyager (which is underrated) went on for seven years just like
Next Generation. Enterprise is the only Star Trek show on now and it is about
the beginnings of space exploration for Earth using warp speed and a ship called
Enterprise. It is still trying to find its way. It was a golden time for
the Trek franchise and it seemed that it would last forever. But then, the odd
film of death occurred as Star Trek IX: Insurrection came out to a tepid
response. This movie had to deal with a plot of Picard and crew trying to
save a planet against the wishes of the Federation. See, an insurrection.
This movie played like an average episode of the Next Generation series and was
not in anyway epic enough to warrant a feature film. Jonathan Frakes had
come off a major hit with First Contact, but this movie faltered. It
looked like Insurrection would be it, but there is a belief that all of the even
numbered Trek movies are good, and the odd numbered ones are not. This
theory would be put to the test with the release of Star Trek X: Nemesis this
past weekend. And now, the full review of the latest Star Trek movie.
franchise can last as long
as Star Trek has. Nemesis is about how the Romulans, the Vulcan looking
aliens are considering a truce with the federation, but just like in Star Trek
VI, there are those who are not in favor of that. The Remans, from the
sister planet Remulus have their own plans for Federation dominance and it comes
in the shape of Shinzon, played by Tom Hardy. He has a very special
connection to Captain Jean Luc Picard, and wants to exploit that bond to its
fullest potential. Picard and his crew are the only ones that can stop
Shinzon from destroying everything. The plot is pretty simple and similar
in ways to Undiscovered Country. It is also similar to Star Trek II, and
much of Star Wars Episode IV as well as several Data episodes from the Next
Generation series. When it is all said and done, Star Trek: Nemesis nearly
breaks the streak of good even numbered Trek films. It is too talky, too
derivative, and its continuity to Trek history is a mess. There are many
things that could be tied into the series to up its level of excitement, but
they are all ignored except for Riker calling his new bride Deanna Troi, imzadi
which means beloved. Imzadi is a Betazed word for that was mentioned way
back in episode one's Encounter at Farpoint and exploited in a couple of Next
Gen novels. Other than some minor bits here and there, Nemesis is all
about Picard and Brent 
Spiner's Data characters. In fact, they have parallel
storylines as they both face things that remind them too much of
themselves. An android is found that looks exactly like Data and their
split screen interactions are never that interesting as it is used to just
gimmick the plot up. It was done much better on the series several times
especially with Data's evil twin Lore. However, this Data clone is not
Lore, but just B4 or before. His origins are never properly explained
other than it is not Lore and that was very bothersome as it never made sense
why this B4 would even exist and be left where it was found. The villain
of Shinzon tries to come off all creepy and menacing, but he is pretty much
dying the whole time and is never really a physical or even mental threat.
Without a cloaked ship, he would never have lasted as long as he did against the
Enterprise. About 20 minutes into the film, there is a long stretch of
boring conversations in ready rooms. They would be fine if they said
anything of interest to the audience waiting for the next phaser or photon
torpedo strike. Trek has always been heavy on the pontificating, and it is
here in force, just not very good force. The secondary players are given
more to do in this movie like Riker and Troi, and to some extent Geordie, the
blind engineer. The biggest waste was Beverly Crusher as she is given
nothing to do at all except stand around. She almost had less screen time
than she did in Hunt for the Red October. The
biggest tragedy is
that of Worf. Worf carried much of the middle years of the series and has
yet to do anything of note in the movies. Worf was so important to Trek
that they put him on Deep Space Nine for the last 4 seasons to spice up the
show. In Nemesis he gets to shoot a gun from the back of a dune buggy and get
drunk on Romulan ale. Also, Worf continues to get no sold from Picard whenever
he suggests some battle strategy. In every episode of Next Generation,
Worf would suggest some plan and Picard would say, no not now Mr. Worf, we will
wait it out. Just once I would like to hear Picard say, "that's a
good idea Mr. Worf, we will do it immediately." That has always
bothered me. The second half of Nemesis picks up significantly as all of
the exposition is finished and the action can take over. These final
scenes help save the film from being a disaster. I love Star Trek space
battles and this one has a few spectacular moments especially the game of
chicken between Enterprise NCC-1701E. A major character is presumed dead
at the end of this movie, but if another one is made, they will be back with
little trouble of accomplishing a resurrection. Star Trek Nemesis is the
second best Next Generation film and better than Star Trek I and V, but not even
close to the others in the first six. The low budget of $60 million really
stands out in this film as it looks more and more like television than a major
motion picture. If you are a Trekkie/Trekker level super fan of Star Trek,
you will never be satisfied and criticize this film to high hell. It doesn't
matter since they will see any Trek movie piece of crap that is
released. A regular fan who does not remember every plot of every
episode will enjoy this film as simple entertainment. Non fans should stay
home. Final Review: 2 1/2 stars out of 5; 5 1/2 out of 10; B-;
thumbs up. Worst of the evens, but the odd/even rule still applies for
Star Trek X: Nemesis.