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Movies

'Ice Age' coolly squashes Stone's 'Basic Instinct 2'

By wire services
Published April 3, 2006

Ice Age: The Meltdown heated up the box office with a mammoth $70.5-million weekend, while audiences gave the cold shoulder to Sharon Stone, whose Basic Instinct 2 debuted with a paltry $3.2-million.

The Ice Age sequel, from 20th Century Fox, took over the top box office spot from Universal's Inside Man , which slipped to No. 2 in its second weekend with $15.7-million, raising its 10-day total to $52.8-million, according to studio estimates Sunday.

Premiering in third place was the Warner Bros. roller-skating tale ATL, starring rapper Tip Harris, which took in $12.5-million.

The overall box office surged, with the top 12 movies grossing $136.5-million, up 40 percent from the same weekend last year. The upswing followed a stagnant first quarter after a prolonged drought last year, when attendance fell 8 percent compared with 2004.

The Miss America pageant will broadcast a seven-episode reality show/documentary series next year to draw in viewers and let the audience choose some of the finalists, officials announced Saturday.

Country Music Television will air the seven-episode Finding Miss America in the days leading up to the January 2007 pageant, the network and the Miss America Organization said.

Each episode will focus on a group of contestants as they live together and compete in preliminary competitions: evening wear, swimwear, talent and the one-on-one interviews with judges.

At the end of the preliminary period, judges will tally their votes and secretly select eight of the 15 top finalists, who will be revealed at the live pageant, according to the Miss America Organization and CMT.

Viewers will be able to vote at the end of each episode via phone and Internet to select the remaining finalists.

[Last modified April 3, 2006, 00:42:17]