'Panic Room' No. 1 at Box Office

April 1 -- Director David Fincher's Panic Room easily won the Easter weekend box-office derby, leaving both new releases (Death to Smoochy and Clockstoppers) and recent hits (Blade II, Ice Age) to choke on its dust.

In addition to earning the near-meaningless title of "Biggest Easter Opening Ever," Panic Room gave Foster's career a welcome bounce — it's her first No. 1 opener in eight long years (the last was Maverick, really a Mel Gibson movie).

Dennis Quaid's media profile has been significantly lower than that of his ex, Meg Ryan, in recent years, but his G-rated baseball drama The Rookie had a healthier debut than any of her last three efforts (Kate & Leopold, Proof of Life and Hanging Up).

In its second week, Blade II took a steep fall, but it still has an excellent chance of emerging as Wesley Snipes' biggest hit ever.

The loser of the weekend was the Danny DeVito-directed Death to Smoochy, starring Robin Williams and Edward Norton. Despite a fantastic performance by Norton, the film received some of the worst reviews since the critical massacre of Freddy Got Fingered.

Still, Smoochy might just manage to eke out a second weekend in the top 10. Next week, a movie likely to get even worse reviews — National Lampoon's Van Wilder — enters the fray along with the Ashley Judd/Morgan Freeman military courtroom flick High Crimes and the delayed-after-9/11 comedy Big Trouble, in which Tim Allen attempts to track down a nuke stolen by terrorists.

Andrew Johnston is a film critic and associate editor at US WEEKLY magazine.