The L.A. Times' Patrick Goldstein has a good thumbsucker today about sequels and their demands. He lays into the usual suspects -- the studios and their beancounters and all the lazy slobs in the audience -- but then he spanks a number of gifted filmmakers who, in his opinion (and, all right, mine), are wasting their time cranking out "Sausage #2," "Sausage #3," and so forth.

Steven Soderbergh ("Oceans Eleven"), Bryan Singer ("X-Men"), Christopher Nolan ("Batman Begins"), and of course Sam Raimi ("Spider-Man") are some of the visionary directors Goldstein calls out for making arrant product, after which he goes after the big fella himself: Steven Spielberg, who's just about to start shooting "Indiana Jones 4." On the other hand, Goldstein talks to Wayne Kramer, director of "The Cooler" and a guy who apparently has turned down a number of offers to make movies with numerals attached. He's the source of the quote up top. And you, very likely, are saying, "Wayne who?"

Scariest nugget of information in the whole article? Harrison Ford is about to turn 65.

This just in: The Harvard Film Archive and the Coolidge Corner Theatre are on the list of grantees for the Academy Foundation's Institutional Grants Program. The Foundation, the educational wing of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (those lovely people who bring us the Oscars every year) has awarded $500,000 to 56 non-profits in the film world.

The HFA will receive $7,500 to help cover costs for visiting filmmakers. The Coolidge will receive $5,000, earmarked for an upcoming seminar on film criticism. Congratulations to both organizations, two of the too-few bright spots on the current Boston moviegoing scene.

In movie real estate news, the mansion owned by the family that served as the basis for the 1940 Katharine Hepburn classic "The Philadelphia Story" is up for sale. The AP story starts off "Ardrossan, named after the Montgomery ancestral home in Ayrshire, Scotland, has been a retreat for the privileged for almost a century. Hope Montgomery Scott, the family head for most of that time, was the basis for Katharine Hepburn's character in the 1940 Oscar-winning movie, which also starred Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart."

If you must know more -- and I know some of you must -- the Philly Inquirer has the full backstory.

No price has been set yet, but, come on, a chance to role-play out by the swimming pool, doing drunken Jimmy Stewart carrying Kate up from the poolhouse? Priceless.

Everyone carps about sequelitis and the death of originality in movies, but you know what? Originality isn't in the studio business model, and it never has been. This morning all the suits in Hollywood are grinning fatcat grins because the model has been once more proven sound.

"Spider-Man 3" cost $260 million or so to make, is getting mixed reviews from critics and even a lot of moviegoers, and so what? The movie arguably recouped its cost in a single weekend: $148 million in U.S. box office plus an additional $227 in foreign ticket sales equals a total of $375 million. Using "Coming to America" accounting methods, this puppy might just break even.

That's a record for weekend box office, eclipsing last year's $136 million for "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" (and doubtless to be eclipsed next summer when "Indiana Jones IV: The Search for a Title" opens on May 22, 2008). Friday's take -- $59.3 million -- broke the one-day record. "Spider-Man 3" also opened on the greatest ever number of screens (over 10,000) in the most theaters (4,252), proof that Sony was aiming for the record books. (By opening the film last Tuesday in 107 other countries, by contrast, the studio was just hoping to make as big a pre-piracy profit as possible.)

It also meant that if you wanted to see a movie this weekend, "Spider-Man 3" was almost all that was playing. The next film down the chart, at #2, was old standby "Disturbia" with $5.7 million. The weekend's only other new studio release -- all others having had the good sense to get the hell out of Dodge -- was Curtis Hanson's gambling drama "Lucky You," which was a bug on the windshield of the Spidey 18-wheeler. Seriously: "Spider-Man 3" made an average $35,000 at each of those 4,252 theaters. "Lucky You," at 2,525 theaters, could barely scrape together $1,000 bucks per house.

There was action down in art-house land, though, where the late Adrienne Shelly's "Waitress" debuted at four theaters and averaged $23,000 at each. Boston will get this lovely little comedy on Friday, and it's worth the wait.

Here are the Box Office Mojo numbers. Leonard Klady's on vacation, but here's the Movie City News chart.