Lemony Snicket's A Series OfUnfortunate Events gave Paramount a much-needed number one opening at theweekend as it swooped to the top on an estimated $30.2m.

Brad Silberling's adaptation ofDaniel Handler's bestselling children's books centres on a pair of orphans andheirs to a fortune who are sent to live with a bizarre and scheming relative.
Jim Carrey stars along with Meryl Streep and the well-received picture averaged$8,342 on 3,620 screens.

Warner Bros' Ocean's Twelveslipped to second place in its second weekend on $18.3m for $68.7m, whileSony's $80m comedy Spanglish opened third to mixed reviews on $9m,roughly half of what observers expected.

James L Brook's picture stars AdamSandler and Tea Leoni as wealthy and dysfunctional Los Angeles parents whoseexistential woes are brought to the fore after they employ a beautiful Mexicanmaid. Paz Vega also stars and the picture averaged $3,691 on 2,438.

Elsewhere 20th CenturyFox's The Flight Of The Phoenix scored a disappointing debut in eighthplace on $5.2m. Dennis Quaid, Tyrese Gibson, Giovanni Ribisi and Miranda Ottostar as crash survivors in the desert who must rebuild their plane and fly tosafety.

Phoenix drew mostly poorreviews and averaged $1,977 on 2,604 screens. John Moore directed this remakeof the 1965 adventure starring James Stewart.

There were strong limited openingsfor several likely Oscar contenders. Miramax's The Aviator, directed byMartin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes, grossedroughly $831,000 on 40 theatres and will expand wide next weekend.

Clint Eastwood's boxing drama MillionDollar Baby starring Hilary Swank took approximately $178,000 from eighttheatres for Warner Bros, while Lions Gate's Bobby Darin biopic Beyond TheSea directed by and starring Kevin Spacey took $48,000 from six theatres.

The top 12 titles grossed roughly$100.3m, a drop of 25% from last year when The Lord Of The Rings: The ReturnOf The King opened top on $72.6m.

Next weekend's wide release isUniversal's comedy sequel Meet The Fockers starring Ben Stiller, RobertDe Niro, Barbara Streisand and Dustin Hoffman.

Estimated Top Ten US Nov 17-19 2004

Film (Distributor)/Internationaldistribution/Estimated weekend gross/Estimated total to date
1 (-) Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events (Paramount)DreamWorks Int'l $30.2m -
2 (1) Ocean's Twelve (Warner Bros) Warner Bros Int'l $18.3m$68.7m
3 (-) Spanglish (Sony) SPRI $9m -
4 (4) The Polar Express (Warner Bros) Warner Bros Int'l $8.6m$123.6m
5 (2) Blade: Trinity (New Line) NLI $6.6m $35.4m
6 (3) National Treasure (Buena Vista) BVI $6.1m $132.8m
7 (5) Christmas With The Kranks (Revolution/Sony) SPRI $5.7m $62.3m
8 (-) The Flight Of The Phoenix (Fox) Fox Int'l $5.2m -
9 (8) Closer (Sony) SPRI $3.5m $18.9m
10 (6) The Incredibles (Pixar/Disney) BVI $3.3m $237.1m