Variety reports that the dubloon-counters at Disney have overturned their Pirates of the Caribbean 2 treasure chest and shaken it until another $3.6 million fell out, pushing its record-breaking opening weekend take to $135.6 million. While we are facetiously excited that a balance sheet somewhere in the accounting department of a monolithic media corporation now contains a slightly larger number than it did this morning, we are genuinely enthused that we have been given this second opportunity to improve upon the unacceptably shoddy image of The Bruckaneer that we posted earlier today. Now we can go get drunk without that nagging feeling of having failed the Bruck's fans.

Take in the record! breaking! numbers! from this weekend, secretly pleased that your boss is in a meeting trying to figure out how to delay Tom Hanks' next project so they can get him into "something piratey" immediately.

· Cower before the box office juggernaut that is Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, which "huge tracking numbers" reveal may crush Aquaman's all-time opening weekend record. Still, Disney's head of distribution pretends he's not already designing gloating ads in the trades with room for nine figures trailing a golden dollar sign: "No matter how you answer that question, it can come back to hurt you." Eh, stop being such a pussy and predict a $200 million take! No one will hold you to the figure on Monday morning, we promise. [Variety]
· Now this is one we've gotta see for ourselves: The Princess Bride's Westley will molest Lindsay Lohan in Georgia Rule. [THR]
· Emmy mysteries: How can the voters get it so right by snubbing the now unwatchable Desperate Housewives, yet so wrong by ignoring Lost? [Variety]
· Bafflingly, Crash's multiple Oscar wins did not result in the immediate blackballing of all involved in its production, as those with the most damning ties to the film continue to get work. [THR]
· The remake of All the King's Men will premiere at the Toronto Film Festival, unless Sony freaks out again and pushes it back to do some more "edits." [Variety]
· Yarr, cutesy pirate talk has no place in a trade publication. [THR]

· Superman Returns pulls in just™ $106 million over its seven-day opening weekend, as well as a Fantastic Four/Hulk-trailing, somewhat disappointing™ $52 million over the traditional three-day frame. [Variety]
· THR is not as reflexively pessimistic as we are, saying Superman "avoided the kryptonite of overhype and muscled its way to an estimated gross of a sturdy $106 million." "STURDY!" should make an excellent pullquote for the next round of movie posters. [THR]
· Foreigners love Superman! Moderately and solidly! Though the Man of Steel is still awaiting his debut in faraway lands that care about the World Cup. [Variety]
· Paulie Walnuts and Silvio finally settle their contract dispute with HBO and will continue on The Sopranos, obviating the need for a clumsy, expository pork store scene in which Bacala rushes in to tell the guys how the pair "got whacked by Big Chris Albrecht on their way over from last season." [THR]
· Ben Stiller will direct and executive produce a CBS comedy pilot starring wife Christine Taylor, who will play the typecasting-busting role of an actress married to a movie star. Stiller will be trotted out for cameos where appropriate. [Variety]

When life—and doesn't it just seem to always?—gives you lemons, do what we do: roll up your sleeves, paint on a smile, and make "this having to work on Monday thing is really putting a damper on my long weekend plans"-ade! To help you sweeten that sour nectar, some high fructose box office numbers:

Enjoy a tall glass of these fresh-squeezed box office numbers on your Monday morning:

Bow before the sacred numbers that the box office gods have provided for us on this holy Monday morning:

· Var declares this summer "most competitive weekend," meaning that no one is really that excited about seeing new releases Lake House, Nacho Libre,
or The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, and will probably just wind up going to Cars again. [Variety]
· Sigourney Weaver is in negotiations to join the budget-conscious cast of Matthew Fox, Dennis Quaid, William Hurt, and Forest Whitaker in the blandly titled presidential assassination thriller Vantage Point. [THR]
· Josh Hartnett seeks to continue his unquestioned dominance of movies with titles including multiples of 10 and forms of the words "days" and "night" by looking to star in the Sony horror flick 30 Days of Night. [Variety]
· THR says that Hollywood's love affair with sappy romantic dramas is over. Well, over once The Lake House tanks this weekend. [THR]
· Philip Seymour Hoffman, whom we wouldn't mind seeing in about 10 movies a year, will star in Before the Devil Knows You're Dead before moving on to shoot Charlie Wilson's War with little-known character actors Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts. [Variety]

Let the weekend box office numbers bring some sunlight into the June Gloom hanging over this dreary Monday morning:

Fans of obscure box office records will be delighted to learn that yesterday's demonically timed opening of The Omen shattered the 6-6-06 release record held by 1906's Dream of a Rarebit Fiend, as well as Ali's far less coveted all-time Tuesday mark, with a cutely misreported $12,633,666 gross. Reports Box Office Mojo:

Enjoy the weekend box office numbers, which are 67 percent less Ratnertastic than last week's troubling, record-shattering results.

Today's Variety reports that Warner Bros. will release Superman Returns two days earlier than originally planned, shifting the opening from Friday, June 30th to a new debut on Wednesday, June 28th, a move designed to create a (God please forgive us for writing this) box-office-boosting "superweekend":

· International audiences love boringly presented blasphemy, Brett Ratner: Da Vinci Code wins the foreign box office for the second week in a row with $90.9 million, while new release X-Men: The Last Stand rakes in $76.1 million. [Variety]
· CBS settles its lawsuit with Howard Stern and Sirius, with Stern's new satellite home paying CBS $2 million for rights to his radio archives, dashing our hopes that the affair would be settled by a winner-take-all match of anal ring toss between Les Moonves and Beetlejuice. [THR]
· The Palm d'Or goes to director Ken Loach for The Wind that Shakes the Barley, reminding us that films besides Da Vinci and X-Men screened at Cannes. [Variety]
· Studios looking past traditional promotional campaigns with fast food and soft drinks tie-ins this summer are joining up with less conventional marketing partners, like Superman Returns' risky, co-branded line of feminine hygiene products featuring Lois Lane's likeness. [THR]
· ABC and CBS make it easy for viewers to ignore their American Idol clones The One and Rock Star by scheduling them to face off in the same summer timeslot. [Variety]

You spent your three-day holiday weekend trying to relax, but you never really achieved that elusive calm, anxious that you'd have to wait another day for the box office numbers. Know peace:

As expected, this weekend's world premiere of the The Da Vinci Code was quickly followed by the release of pirated copies of the summer's first true blockbuster. Reuters reports from the somewhat less glamorous black market debut event in Shanghai:

Let the box office numbers be your ray of sunshine on this soggy Monday morning:

Disclosure: As charter members of the vast media conspiracy bent on portraying international superstar Tom Cruise in a negative light, all figures from the weekend box office numbers may be presented in a way that unfairly advances our dark agenda. Proceed with caution.

While some of Tom Cruise's pals from the mothership clearly failed in their mission to support Scientology's brightest light on his big day, at least one other emissary did her part to make sure a local theater was packed with a Cruise-friendly contingent. Reported an operative on Saturday night:

On this sad day, there will be no weary preamble about the restorative properties of the box office numbers:

Brighten your post-Coachella Blue Monday with the weekend box office numbers: