By Dean Goodman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Samuel L. Jackson (news) and his gung-ho crew of Los Angeles cops captured the top spot at the North American box office as "S.W.A.T." opened at No. 1 with a better-than-expected haul of $37 million in its first weekend.

According to studio estimates issued on Sunday, the feature version of the 1970s TV show sent incumbent champ "American Wedding" tumbling to the No. 3 spot with $15.1 million in its second weekend.

In between was another new release, "Freaky Friday," a comedy remake starring Jamie Lee Curtis (news) and Lindsay Lohan (news). The female-oriented role-reversal fantasy sold $22.3 million worth of tickets over the weekend. Since opening on Wednesday, it has earned $33.2 million.

At the other end of the scale, the Jennifer Lopez (news)-Ben Affleck (news) bomb "Gigli" slid a provisional nine places to No. 17 after earning just $640,000 -- a huge 82 percent slide from its opening weekend. The $55 million film's 10-day total rose to $5.6 million. Final data will be released on Monday.

Publicity surrounding Arnold Schwarzenegger (news)'s run for governor of California did nothing for his movie, "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines," which clung to No. 10 with $1.6 million. Its total rose to $146 million after six weekends.

Both "S.W.A.T." and "Gigli" were released by Columbia Pictures, a unit of Sony Corp (NYSE:SNE - news) (news - web sites) . "Freaky Friday" was released by Walt Disney Pictures, a unit of Walt Disney Co . "American Wedding" was released by Universal Pictures, a unit of Vivendi Universal SA . "Terminator 3" was released in North America by Warner Bros. Pictures, a unit of AOL Time Warner Inc .

BOX OFFICE BLUES

The strong bows of "S.W.A.T." and "Freaky Friday" could not prevent overall sales from falling for a second consecutive weekend. Box office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations calculated the top 12 films earned $127.4 million, the smallest tally since the June 27-29 weekend, when the disappointing "Charlie's Angels" sequel also opened with about $37 million.

"S.W.A.T.," an $80 million thriller revolving around the exploits of the Special Weapons and Tactics arm of the Los Angeles Police Department, also stars Colin Farrell (news), LL Cool J and Michelle Rodriguez (news). Olivier Martinez (news) plays an international terrorist, a Frenchman to boot.

"It's fresh, you have a really cool, hot cast ... and it's fun," said Rory Bruer, president of domestic theatrical distribution at Columbia. He said he would have been ecstatic with a $30 million opening, and expected the film to end up making more than $100 million.

Thanks to the accessible PG-13 rating, the film played fairly widely, with males accounting for 54 percent of the audience. About the same percentage was under 25, and 83 percent of poll respondents gave it a "very good" or "definite recommend" rating.

"Freaky Friday" received a 91 percent "very good" or "definite recommend" rating, and Disney executives also have their eye on hitting $100 million, or the century mark -- not bad for a movie reportedly budgeted at under $20 million. Teens comprised 30 percent of the audience, and females 70 percent, the studio said.

"American Wedding," the third slice in the "American Pie" comedy franchise, meanwhile, has earned $65 million after two weekends. Its 2001 predecessor, "American Pie 2," earned $87 million by the same time, on its way to $145 million.

Rounding out the top five were Disney's "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl," down one slot to No. 4 with $13.1 million in its fifth weekend. The total for the Johnny Depp (news) swashbuckler rose to $232.8 million.

Universal's horse-racing drama "Seabiscuit" took the No. 5 position with $11.9 million in its third weekend. Its total rose to $69.5 million.

1. S.W.A.T. .......... $37,062,535

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $37,062,535

2. Freaky Friday .......... $22,203,007

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $33,100,977

3. American Wedding .......... $15,462,250

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $65,213,715

4. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl .......... $13,022,470

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $232,750,629

5. Seabiscuit .......... $11,957,955

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $69,509,360

6. Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over .......... $9,794,079

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $87,100,407

7. Bad Boys II .......... $6,040,845

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $123,093,425

8. Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life .......... $5,221,055

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $53,719,839

9. Finding Nemo .......... $2,512,275

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $324,916,113

10. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines .......... $1,624,345

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $145,987,605

John L.: Colin Farrell continues to have the best box office year since Jim Carrey came out with Ace Ventura Pet Detective, The Mask, and Dumb and Dumber in the same calendar year. The Irish lug was once box office poison, but now for some reason he gets involved with films that cause people to rush out to the theaters. I'm still not sure most people know him by his name alone without a movie qualification. He needs an Oscar nomination to reach that level, and there doesn't' seem to be a chance that will happen anytime soon. Freaky Friday is the best reviewed film of the week and has opened very well giving Jamie Lee Curtis a much needed career boost. She has been going around showing off her disheveled body to tell people that her glamorous look is all special effects and lens Vaseline. That is very depressing as I really thought her scenes in Trading Places accurately portrayed her. If this movie makes over a hundred million dollars, I expect Sneaky Saturday to be just around the corner.

Cops get a bad rap in real life. Every time a police officer even attempts to act like some of the law enforcement in the movies and television they get written up and put on trial for violating a criminal's civil rights. In real life, cops are allowed to say freeze and hope the perp surrenders and politely puts their hands behind their back to be handcuffed so they can be carefully placed in the back of a squad car. If a a cop shoots a suspect, all hell breaks loose and people are on the street protesting because the shooting victim forgot to carry a firearm to justify their arrest. The protect and serve crew in S. W. A. T. tend to shoot first, second, and third, and then look for more people to shoot without the hassle of questions getting in the way. Have a gun, you die is the name of the game here. SWAT's story is about how SWAT guy Jim Street (Colin Farrell) gets back on a SWAT team to help protect the citizens of Los Angeles from its criminal element like drug terrorist Alex Montel (Oliver Martinez). Montel just wants to do his bad stuff in the United States for a while and be left alone, but after getting pulled over for a broken tail light, he gets thrown in jail. As his true bad boy side is revealed, he is to be transferred to a maximum security federal prison. On his way, he says he will give $100 MILLION DOLLARS to anyone who breaks him out of jail. This causes every nut job with a rocket launcher and a BB gun to try to attempt a rescue. Fortunately, Sergeant Hondo (Samuel L. Jackson) has just recruited his personal SWAT team to handle such extreme cases. SWAT is an entertaining film that needed to have a stronger pace to be special. The first half is all about the recruiting of Farrell, Deke (James Todd Smith, AKA Ladies Love Cool J, AKA L. L. Cool J.), Sanchez (Michelle Rodriguez on loan from Resident Evil), McCabe (Josh Charles), and Boxer (Brian Van Holt). While they are learning how to be a team, Montel tries to do dirty deeds, but is stopped way too soon after the obligatory pointless killing. His villainy is not shown to be that extreme to warrant all of this attention causing him to be quite the minimal threat. I would have preferred the movie be just various SWAT type missions like the one that started the film in the bank, and the other one where a guy was in his house with his gun pointed at the cops. The central plot was just too pointless. Montel eventually becomes secondary as a specially trained rescuer makes their big move and becomes the main focus of attack. However, this guy is underused as well, and his character arc is very obvious ten minutes into the film. There is no character development whatsoever, just little bits and bites of things like Street breaking up with Boxer's sister causing them to fight with each other. Sanchez is trying to be the first female SWAT member and raise her daughter at the same time. Deke sort of just stands around and looks at his abs as his personal life is too normal to be worth even mentioning it. McCabe gets to show some personality, and gets involved in things at a much deeper level than the stars Farrell and Jackson. The action doesn't really kick in until the big $100 MILLION DOLLARS offer, but by then you are sort of blah to the whole thing since there are no characters to care about. Jackson doesn't get to show off in any way here and sits around way too much. He seemed to be waiting to for the filming of Episode 3 to start over giving any type of meaningful performance. The movie is entertaining enough to recommend, but it is very forgettable. A stronger villain and better back stories on the good guys would have given this movie an extra shot in the shoulder. Final Review: 2 1/2 stars out of 5; 5 1/2 out of 10; B-; thumbs up.

1. Freaky Friday, like SWAT, is a plot that comes from the 1970s.

2. I believe that this may be the most successful body switch movie since Big, which may not have really been a body switch movie now that I think of it.

3. American Wedding looks to fall short of even the first American Pie in terms of its total box office take.

4. The Pirates juggernaut continues to be one of the most impressive box office performances of the year.

5. Seabiscuit is doing well, but its perceived Oscar worthiness may be hurting its chances of attracting a younger crowd that would tend to enjoy it.

6. Like American Wedding, I don't think Spy Kids 3-D will do as well as the first film.

7. Since the Bad Boys II soundtrack is doing so well, Bad Boys III should be Puff Daddy and Nelly as the cops and Will Smith and Martin Lawrence come out with an album.

8. The sleeper bomb of the year goes to the pitiful box office performance of Tomb Raider 2.

9. Finding Nemo is about to swim its way out of the top ten.

10. It's a good thing that California governor candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger's T3 is leaving the list as giving equal time to his opponent, Mary Carey's movies may not be the most appropriate thing to do.

Next week is the showdown many have been waiting for, Brittany Murphy vs Dakota Fanning in Uptown Girls. It should be a slobberknocker. Oh yeah, Freddy Kruger and Jason Vorhees have some issues to work out as well such as which one will get the Queer Eye for the Psycho Guy makeover first. Bye for now.