DAMON ICON PROVES HIS SUPREMACY BOURNE RIVALS BOND AS HERO.

Byline: Greg Hernandez Staff Writer

With a stellar estimated opening weekend gross of $53.5 million, the spy drama ``The Bourne Supremacy'' easily knocked Will Smith's ``I, Robot'' from the top of the box office chart and relegated Halle Berry's ``Catwoman'' to a third-place opening.

Universal Pictures' ``Bourne,'' a sequel to the 2002 surprise hit ``The Bourne Identity,'' nearly doubled the opening of the first film and was easily the biggest box office debut of star Matt Damon's career.

``I couldn't envision this,'' said Nikki Rocco, Universal's president of domestic distribution. ``Why would I think this could open bigger than any James Bond or Tom Clancy movie?''

Michael Moore's ``Fahrenheit 9/11,'' the controversial anti-President George W. Bush movie, finished out of the top five for the first time since its release five weekends ago, but it still earned enough to became the first documentary ever to cross the $100 million mark in domestic grosses.

The Lions Gate release took in an estimated $5 million to bring its overall gross to $103.3 million.

``For a regular feature-length documentary, this is an astounding performance,'' said box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations Co. ``The bar has now been raised in box office potential for documentaries.''

Second-place ``Robot'' suffered a 58 percent drop in business in its second weekend, with an estimated $22 million in ticket sales. The 20th Century Fox release has a two-week take of $95.4 million at the box office.

``It's an extremely competitive time frame at the box office right now when you have two (or) three movies chasing the same audience,'' Dergarabedian said. ``There's this logjam over the summer.''

That logjam seemed to hurt ``Catwoman,'' the Warner Bros. release that also could not overcome some bad early buzz and mediocre reviews, and it managed only $17.16 million in estimated ticket sales during its opening weekend.

Greg Hernandez, [phone]

greg.hernandez(at)dailynews.com

TOP 10 MOVIES

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at North American theaters, according to Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc. Final figures will be released Monday.

1. ``The Bourne Supremacy,'' $53.5 million.

2. ``I, Robot,'' $22 million.

3. ``Catwoman,'' $17.16 million.

4. ``Spider-Man 2,'' $15 million.

5. ``A Cinderella Story,'' $8.04 million.

6. ``Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy,'' $7.1 million.

7. ``Fahrenheit 9/11,'' $5 million.

8. ``The Notebook,'' $4.45 million.

9. ``King Arthur,'' $3.06 million.

10. ``Shrek 2,'' $2.4 million.

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TOP 10 MOVIES (see text)