Columbia Pictures' The Wedding Planner - sold internationally by Intermedia - held on to the number one slot at the North American box office over the weekend, taking in an estimated $11m to bring its ten day total to $28.2m. The romantic comedy beat out competition from Warner Bros' teen horror movie Valentine which had been expected to conquer the box office this weekend. Valentine came in at second with $10.1m.

The Wedding Planner stars Jennifer Lopez, who this week notched up the unusual distinction of being the first person in history to top both the movie and music charts (her album J.Lo was number one in the US pop charts) in the same week.

Meanwhile Valentine, backed by Warner and Village Roadshow Pictures, features David Boreanz, star of TV's Angel, Denise Richards and Jessica Capshaw in a tale of a man taking revenge on the women who taunted him at school. Another youth-skewed opener, Universal's comedy Head Over Heels featuring Monica Potter as a woman who suspects her boyfriend (Freddie Prinze Jr) may be a killer, brought in a meagre $5m, landing in the number seven slot.

The box office was up 2.5% on the same weekend last year, continuing the prosperity of the New Year which is only set to increase next weekend when MGM's Hannibal, the much-hyped sequel to The Silence Of The Lambs, and Columbia's teen comedy Saving Silverman open.

Still performing strongly was Cast Away which crossed the $200m barrier this weekend, Save The Last Dance which drummed up some $7.4m to take its total to $68.7m, and most impressively, Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon which went on to over 1,000 theatres for the first time (exact count: 1,173) and took a spectacular $7.35m. Its total gross is now $53.5m and next week it should surpass Miramax's 1998 hit Life Is Beautiful to become the highest grossing foreign language film of all time in the domestic market.

Meanwhile Miramax enjoyed the fruits of its labours as Chocolat grossed $3.7m, more than it did last weekend when it was on 30 more screens. The comedy has now grossed $22.5m.

ESTIMATED TOP TEN US FEB 2-4
Film (Distributor)/International distribution/Estimated weekend gross/Estimated total to date
1 (1) The Wedding Planner (Columbia) Intermedia $11m $28.2m
2 (-) Valentine (Warner Bros) Warner Bros $10.1m --
3 (3) Cast Away (20th Century Fox) DreamWorks $7.41m $202.9m
4 (2) Save The Last Dance (Paramount) UIP $7.40m $68.7m
5 (6) Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Sony Classics) Good Machine International $7.35m $53.5m
6 (4) Traffic (USA Films) IEG $6.3m $64.9m
7 (-) Head Over Heels (Universal) Universal/UIP $5m --
8 (8) Finding Forrester (Columbia) Columbia TriStar $4.4m $41.5m
9 (7) Snatch (Screen Gems) Columbia TriStar $4.1m $21.8m
10 (13) Chocolat (Miramax) Miramax International $3.7m $22.5m