Box Office: Spy Kids Edges Out Spider

April 8 -- At the weekend box office, last week's No. 1 champ, Spy Kids staved off several new films to — just barely — place at the top of the box office again.The junior-league espionage adventure narrowly bested newcomer Along Came a Spider by a mere $700,000, according to studio estimates

Spider, based on the James Patterson book about detective Alex Cross (played by Morgan Freeman), debuted with an estimated $17.1 million, slightly improving in the $13.2 million 1997 debut of Kiss The Girls, which also starred Freeman as Cross.

Since Spider is set before Girls, Ashley Judd (and her kickboxing doctor character) was missing from the new film. Taking over the female lead in Spider is the lesser known Monica Potter.

Judd appears elsewhere in the Top Five, in the romantic comedy Someone Like You, which fell to fifth place its second week out.Spy Kids earned nearly twice as much as its only new kiddie film competition, Pokémon 3: The Movie. Spy Kids took in $17.8 million, while the third feature-length cartoon about Pikachu and his friends earned $9.2 million. So far, the Robert Rodriguez-directed family action film has taken in $49 million. A sequel was okayed by Miramax, which is distributing it through its Dimension branch, even before the film opened.

Also new this weekend is Ted Demme's Blow, starring Johnny Depp in the true tale of cocaine dealer George Jung, who imported the drug from Colombia to America in the 1970s. After similarly plotted films Traffic Goodfellas, and Boogie Nights, many critics dismissed the film as a "been there, snorted that," retread.

Blow opened with $12.5 million, making it Depp's best film debut after Sleepy Hollow's $30 million opening in 1999.

The Top 10 films for April 6-8, 2001:

Spy Kids, $17.8 millionAlong Came a Spider, $17.1 millionBlow, $12.5 millionPokémon 3: The Movie, $9.2 millionSomeone Like You, $5.5 millionHeartbreakers, $5.1 millionEnemy at the Gates, $3.5 millionThe Brothers, $3 millionCrouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, $2.99 millionTomcats, $2.9 million