This was the weekend that Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life was going to battle it out with last week's winner Bad Boys II. Angelina Jolie's star vehicle came in very close to the streetwise Bad Boys and those persistent Pirates, but Robert Rodriguez's Spy Kids 3-D surpassed all expectations and outperformed the openings of the first two Spy Kids films with the weekend's best opening, an estimated $32.5 million. Tomb Raider came in 4th with a disappointing total of $21.8 million, less that half of the original Tomb Raider's $47.7 million opening.
Tomb Raider came within a few hundred thousand dollars of Pirates of the Caribbean, Bad Boys II, and just topped the surprising Seabiscuit. The saga of a Depression-era race horse, which stars Tobey McGuire (Spider-Man), performed much better than expected, earning some $21.5 million, despite being in 1200 fewer theaters than Tomb Raider. While Pirates and Bad Boys continued to do well, Terminator 3 and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen both dropped off considerably once again. Finding Nemo passed the $312 million mark and became the highest-grossing animated film ever, though given the difference in admission prices between today and when the Lion King was released, the Lion King still has a healthy lead in total admissions. 
