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In somewhat of a dull-weekend overall, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within seized pole position in Germany, Italy, and Spain while A Knight's Tale recorded similar numbers to Sony's other release, The Animal in Australia and had beneficial openings in New Zealand and South Korea.

Defeating Bridget Jones's Diary and Planet of the Apes, Sony's A Knight's Tale kicked off its foreign campaign with $1,187,075 from 241 screens for a nice screen average of $4,926. Earlier, on August 2nd, Sony's other mediocre summer box office film grossed $1,025,776 from 190 screens for a screen average of $5,399. The film benefited for the lengthy tour led by homegrown thesp Heath Ledger. The film also opened in New Zealand with a good $168,000 and South Korea with an very good $626,000 from 62 screens delivering a solid $2 million weekend from 344 screens.

Also in Oz Captain Corelli's Mandolin opened from a sizeable 212 theaters with $547,789 for a not so good screen average of $2,534. The film now looks like it will close its international run at around $40-50 million. Blow also opened with $462,069 from 131 for a much better screen average of $2,527. Nurse Betty opened in its last major market with a nice $117,047 from 36 for a good average of $3,251. Bridget Jones's Diary stumbled 31% loosing 27 theaters to $9,512,955 in five weeks as Planet of the Apes fell 46% loosing 40 theaters for $5,043,159 in three weeks.

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within premiered in Austria, Germany, Italy, and Spain with decent numbers. In Germany it topped the chart with $2,468,792 from 616 theaters for the highest screen average of the weekend with $4,008. Nipping at its heals though was Bridget Jones's Diary with $1,942,121 from 506 with a good average of $3,838. The tables were altared in Austria, though, as Bridget topped the charts with $306,042 from 81 and Final Fantasy slipped to third with $228,648. But Final Fantasy still had the highest screen average with $4,397 compared to Bridget's $3,778. The completly computer animated feature did not fare so weel in Belgium, Finland, and Venezuela as it failed to take the top spot. It totaled $7.2 million from 2,750 screens for the weekend for a final international talley of $27.7 million.

The official start of the box office season in Italy did not get off with a bang as warm weather prevented audiences from visiting the theaters. Final Fantasy, Driven, Dr. Dolittle 2, and Spy Kids led the box office which bounced up over 50%. Final Fantasy benefited from lots of press coverage for its innovation as a live-action CGI feature, but received a lukewarm response with a weekend screen average of $3,768, although that beats last weekends screen average for the Top 20 of $1,522.5. The other freshmen were much softer, but have already collected serious money from previews of the previous weeks.

In just five days Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes has over $7.15 million from 742 screens in France. That is Fox's third highest opening there behind Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace and Independence Day. And its admissions were almost double the opening weekends of Pearl Harbor, Jurassic Park III, and The Mummy Returns.

Fox's Moulin Rouge kicked off its second run in the international market in Latin America. It opened number one in Brazil with $424,000 from 142 screens and number two in Argentina with $238,969 from 35 screens. With UK being its first European market opening on September 7th, its international cume is already at $21.5 million.

Opening in Russia, Sweden, and Turkey Jurassic Park III took a nice $7 million over the weekend totaling $138,097,966 to date.

A.I.: Artificial Intelligence bumped sophomore Rush Hour 2 from the top spot in Hong Kong with $897,000 (41% of the box office there).

Next weekend business should pick up with Rush Hour 2 opening on 561 screens in France along with the $10 million local film Absolument Fabuleux opening on 590 screens. Planet of the Apes is unleashed in Austria, Belgium, Germany, and Spain. Moulin Rouge finishes off most of Latin America with openings in Chile, Ecuador, and Puerto Rico. Fresh off its opening in Australia A Knight's Tale opens in the United Kingdom along with Angel Eyes, 3000 Miles to Graceland, and Hedwig & the Angry Inch. Also in Germany The Ladie's Man looks to charm audiences into the theaters. Jurassic Park III makes one of its last stops in Australia along with Startup.com. And Kiss of the Dragon debuts in Japan.

Absolument Fabuleux will most likely lead the French box office, but Jackie Chan has proved he can release any film with great numbers so look for Rush Hour 2 to get around $4 million. Planet of the Apes could have the highest opening weekend of the year in Germany next weekend. Expect around $6.5 million. In Oz Jurassic Park III should get around $2 million and the top spot as Startup.com looks to grab mediocre screen averages. And Kiss of the Dragon could pull in $3 million on its opening weekend in Japan.

These are my predicted foreign totals for the selected films:

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider: $141 million

Swordfish: $85 million

Shrek: $259 million

Bridget Jones's Diary: $171 million

Moulin Rouge: $82 million

A.I.: Artificial Intelligence: $311 million

Cats & Dogs: $110 million

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within: $101 million

Planet of the Apes: $210 million

Rush Hour 2: $151 million

*Numbers are changed whenever a market produces unexpected numbers.