Matt Damon showed off some box-office supremacy, while Halle Berry was consigned to the multiplex equivalent of a litter box.

Damon's thriller sequel The Bourne Supremacy dominated the weekend box office, opening at number one with a supremely good $52.5 million, a personal best for the star.

But Berry's comic-book caper Catwoman coughed up a hairball, managing only a whisker-thin $16.7 million third-place debut, according to final studio figures released Monday.

Opening at 3,165 sites The Bourne Supremacy, in which Damon reprises his role as the memory-impaired superspy, did considerably bigger business than the original The Bourne Identity, which debuted with $27.1 million in summer 2002 and eventually grossed $121.6 million. The PG-13 Universal release, which cost a relatively bargain-bin $75 million to produce, also bested the original in per-screen average with $16,595, compared to the first flick's $10,280 at 2,638 sites.

"Audiences were clearly looking for something that featured action as well as a strong story," said Nikki Rocco, president of distribution for Universal Pictures. "As we proved with the first Bourne film, moviegoers are eager for a summer blockbuster that has substance as well as style.

"This film delivers on many levels, as our exit polls clearly showed," Rocco continued. "Strong reviews and good word-of-mouth should continue to drive audiences to theaters."

"It's an amazing gross, especially considering the overlapping audience appeal of the top four films," commented Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations. He credits the numbers to a combination of good reviews, the success of the original on DVD (a newly retooled DVD version of The Bourne Identity is expected to debut on top of the DVD sales charts this week) and the simple fact that "people want to see more of this character."

Apparently nobody much gave a meow about seeing the feline-friendly leather-clad Berry claw at Sharon Stone and other evildoers. The PG-13 Warners release, which reportedly cost almost $100 million to produce, had been mauled by critics (including being compared unfavorably to Garfield by the New York Times--me-ouch!), and Dergarabedian theorized, "Boys like to see the word 'man', not 'woman' " in their action flicks. At 3,117 sites, Catwoman averaged only $5,367.

Last week's number one, I, Robot was in second place. Will Smith's assault on automatons dropped a huge 58 percent, but still earned $21.7 million to bring its current gross to $95.1 million. Dropping less precipitously--only 39 percent--was Spider-Man 2, which, in its fourth week, was down from second to fourth place, snagging another $15 million to bring its overall tally to $328.5 million.

Meantime, Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 passed the $100 million mark on Saturday in its fifth weekend of release. It's the first documentary in history to achieve that milestone. Now in seventh place on the box-office chart, the $6 million production burned through another $4.8 million, pushing its total gross to $103.1 million. The Bush-bashing documentary averaged $2,566 at 1,855 sites--149 fewer than last weekend.

In limited release, The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi, a gory comic action film based on the popular Japanese character, sliced up the weekend's second-best per-theater average. At just four screens, the R-rated Miramax import averaged $15,276 for a total of $61,104.

The weekend's other new art-house entry, Warner Indie Pics' A Home at the End of the World, which made headlines for a cut scene involving star Colin Farrell's full monty, tallied $64,728 from a per-site average of $12,946 at five theaters.

Overall, the top 12 movies this weekend grossed $138.9 million, down more than 1 percent from last weekend and about 6 percent from this time last year, when the top four movies were Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Bad Boys II and Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life.

Here is a rundown of the top 10 films, as compiled by Exhibitor Relations:

1. The Bourne Supremacy, $52.5 million
2. I, Robot, $21.7 million
3. Catwoman, $16.7 million
4. Spider-Man 2, $15 million
5. A Cinderella Story, $7.8 million
6. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, $7 million
7. Fahrenheit 9/11, $4.8 million
8. The Notebook, $4.3 million
9. King Arthur, $3 million
10. Shrek 2, $2.3 million

(Originally published July 25, 2004 at 1:30 p.m. PT.)