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Die Another Day arrived to a chart topping $47 million, the biggest opening ever for a Bond film. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets retreated to second place with a still powerful $42.4 million. It should be at $170 million going into Thanksgiving weekend.

Friday After Next kicked off in third place to a punchy $13.1 million. Santa Clause 2 held well, finishing fourth with $10.3 million.

8 Mile was a quiet fifth with $8.7 million, heading for a very profitable $125 million.

Driven by the Bond and Potter franchises, key films totaled $149.9 million, down about 10 percent from $167 million the previous weekend this year. Comparisons with 2001 don't apply because this weekend last year was the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

THE TOP TEN

MGM's Lion was roaring as United Artists' PG-13 rated action adventure thriller Die Another Day, the 20th of the studio's Bond epics, opened in first place to a to-die-for $47.0 million at 3,314 theaters ($14,183 per theater).

Die's average per theater was the highest for any film playing in wide release this weekend.

Directed by Lee Tamahori and produced by Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, it stars Pierce Brosnan and Halle Berry.

"Anything with a '4' in front of it, we would be happy (with), so being at the high end of that we're ecstatic," MGM senior vice president, publicity Eric Kops said Sunday morning. "The exit polls are great. They're pretty well divided -- male-female equally and young and old. So the exit polls are tremendous. They're way ahead of the exit polls for any other Bond movie we've had of the Pierce (Brosnan as 007) movies."

Asked how many screens the film's 3,314 theaters translates into, Kops replied, "It's 5,000 and change."

The last Bond film, The World Is Not Enough, opened, Kops said, "to $35.5 million, so we're 32 percent ahead of that."

World is Not Enough arrived the weekend of Nov. 19-21, 1999 to $35.52 million at 3,163 theaters ($11,230 per theater). It went on to gross $126.9 million in domestic theaters and $225.1 million in international theaters for a worldwide total of $352 million. With its stronger launch and the Thanksgiving holiday weekend looming as a strong second weekend for the film, Die already appears to be on track to out-perform World is Not Enough.

Besides the good news on the domestic front, MGM also had success this weekend on the international front with 007. "We also opened in four international territories and broke records there, as well," Kops said. "Between France, the U.K., French speaking Switzerland and Spain it's going to be about $23 million."

Warner Bros.' PG rated sequel Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets dropped one notch to second place in its second week with a still sizable ESTIMATED $42.37 million (-52%) at 3,682 theaters (theater count unchanged; $11,507 per theater). Its cume is approximately $148.5 million.

Directed by Chris Columbus, it stars Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson.

"That's really right where we want to be because we're going to pick up probably another $22 million between now and the end of the week with the holiday, so we'll end up about 39 or 40 percent for the week," Warner Bros. Distribution president Dan Fellman said Sunday morning.

Comparisons between the second weekend drops for Chamber of Secrets and last year's Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone aren't possible because of the way Thanksgiving fell last year. "You can't compare week to week because the day after Thanksgiving is the biggest day of the year," Fellman explained. "So all the kids are out (of school). We did $22 million on Friday and then we went down on Saturday. So you can't look at that (for comparison). You've got to go look at the week after to see what happens.

"What's important to look at is the second week. The reason we moved that (release) date up is because now we'll have this huge bump -- probably another $21-$22 million in between now and the end of the week -- so we'll finish the week down somewhere between 39 and 40 or 41 percent. Then we're coming into Thanksgiving weekend. In terms of drop off, the kids were back in school this Friday, so we did $11 million on Friday and we did almost $19 million last night (Saturday). What'll happen now is next Friday against the $11 million, we'll out-gross that by a huge amount. So our drop off for the third week is going to be minimal -- maybe 20 or 25 percent. So we'll have another huge week and at the end of three weeks we'll be right where the first one was."

Where is Chamber of Secrets heading? "After Thanksgiving, in a week, we'll we well over $200 million," Fellman replied. "We're going in the same direction (as Sorcerer's Stone, which did $317.6 million domestically). The question now is we have to see what happens over Thanksgiving against all the competition. The movie (according to many people) is a better movie than number one, so then we head for Christmas. The good news is that there's no big family Christmas movie out there after we pass Thanksgiving. It's just one of those movies everybody's going to see. So if they don't see it Thanksgiving, they'll see it over Christmas. We're on track."