Hollywood Digest

'SIGNS' TOPS WEAK U.S. BOX OFFICE

"Signs" was No. 1 again at the U.S. box office, finishing on top for the third time in its five weeks in release with an estimated $16.5 million over the four-day Labor Day holiday weekend.

M. Night Shyamalan's supernatural thriller has taken in $195.1 million.

The No. 2 spot this week was something of a surprise, as the independent comedy "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" took in an estimated $14.6 million -- to $13.1 million for No. 3 "XXX." "Wedding" has slowly but surely become a remarkable success story, taking in $82.3 million over 20 weeks in limited, but expanding, release.

The major new release over Labor Day, "Fear Dot Com," took in a tepid $7.1 million in its opening weekend, finishing fifth behind "Spy Kids 2," which took in $7.3 million in its fourth weekend.

It was not a good weekend overall at the U.S. box office, with a total gross of $109 million -- down 8 percent from the same weekend last year. It was the seventh consecutive weekend that grosses fell short in year-to-year comparisons.

Still, year-to-date the box office is running 12 percent ahead of 2001 with $6.27 billion in grosses through Labor Day.

The summer box-office season got off to an impressive start but finished with a whimper -- putting up a 2.4 percent increase in total grosses over last summer with industrywide totals coming in at $3.03 billion for the summer, according to box-office tracker Nielsen EDI. Daily Variety reported that final numbers might actually reveal a decline in ticket sales -- with the increase in grosses offset by ticket price increases estimated to be in the neighborhood of 3.5 to 4 percent.

The brightest performers at the box office this summer were "Austin Powers in Goldmember" ($203.5 million), "Signs" ($195.1 million) and "Men in Black II" ($189.7 million).

TBS FINDS JFK JR.

TBS has announced that relative unknown Kristoffer Polaha has won the plum starring role in the upcoming TV movie "America's Prince: The John F. Kennedy Jr. Story."

Polaha, a graduate of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, has appeared on TV series including "Angel," "Roswell" and "That's Life." His movie credits include the independent picture "Petty Crimes," and the 2002 feature "Home Base" -- the story of an angry young man who gets even with his ex-girlfriend by trying to date her mother.

The role of JFK Jr.'s one-time girlfriend, actress Daryl Hannah, will also be played by a relative unknown, Tara Chocol -- who has appeared on TV series including "Sex and the City," "ER," "Judging Amy" and "The Practice." Chocol also starred in the 2001 movie "Dirt," as a woman who is kidnapped by a pair of motherless sons when they decide they need a woman around the house.

"America's Prince," based on Christopher Andersen's best-selling book "The Day John Died," also stars Jacqueline Bisset ("The Deep," "Day for Night") as Jacqueline Kennedy-Onassis, and Portia de Rossi ("Ally McBeal") as Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, the wife of JFK Jr., who died with him when their small plane crashed on a flight to Martha's Vineyard in July 1999.

The movie is set to premiere on TBS Superstation this winter.

FIELD RETURNS TO 'ER'

Sally Field will reprise her Emmy-winning role as the mentally ill mother of Nurse Abby (Maura Tierney) on "ER" in a series of appearances this season.

Field -- who won best actress Oscars for "Norma Rae" (1979) and "Places in the Heart" (1984) -- originated the role of Maggie Wyczenski in 1994. She won the Emmy last year for outstanding guest actress in a drama series.

'NAVARONE,' 'CAPE FEAR' DIRECTOR DIES

J. Lee Thompson -- the director of such movie classics as "Cape Fear" (1962) and "The Guns of Navarone" (1961) -- died Friday of congestive heart failure in Sooke, on the west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, according to his publicist. Thompson was 88.

Thompson directed two "Planet of the Apes" sequels -- "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes" (1972) and "Battle for the Planet of the Apes" (1973). He directed Charles Bronson in nine pictures -- including "10 to Midnight" (1983), "Murphy's Law" (1986), "Death Wish 4: The Crackdown" (1987) and "Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects" (1989), which was Thompson's last feature.

RUNAWAY PRODUCTION BILL SETBACK

The campaign against runaway movie and TV production is expected to focus on Capitol Hill, now that a California Assembly committee has killed a bill to provide tax breaks to producers who kept their projects in the state rather than moving the work to less expensive overseas locations.

The bill would have provided a 15 percent wage-based tax credit for producers -- applicable to the first $25,000 of a worker's pay on productions with budgets under $10 million. It had been endorsed by most Hollywood trade unions, but opponents argued that the state could not afford to extend the tax break while running a budget deficit estimated at more than $20 billion.

CONTROVERSY WILL NOT AFFECT MASTERS TELECAST

CBS and USA Network announced over the weekend that they plan to continue to televise the Masters Golf Tournament, despite pressure from a coalition of women's groups that is urging the Augusta National Golf Club -- where the Masters if played each year -- to admit women as members.

Martha Burk, head of the National Council of Women's Organizations, wrote in June to Augusta National Chairman William "Hootie" Johnson, asking him to review the club's membership policies "so that this is not an issue when the tournament is staged next year." Johnson wrote back that he found Burk's "references to discrimination, allusions to the sponsors and ... setting of deadlines to be both offensive and coercive."

Johnson said any further communication between his organization and the NCWO "would not be productive," but he issued a press release saying "the essence of a private club is privacy," and promising that August National would not be "bullied, threatened or intimidated."

Johnson's statement suggested that the NCWO would try to "depict the members of our club as insensitive bigots" and coerce tournament sponsors to pull out "under threat ... of boycotts and other economic pressures."

Augusta National announced on Friday that it will present the 2003 Masters commercial-free, rather than put its sponsors -- Citigroup, IBM and Coca-Cola -- at risk of potential boycotts.

CBS and USA Network told The Hollywood Reporter they plan to broadcast the event next April.