Box-Office Top Five#1 “Meet the Spartans” ($18.7 million)#2 “Rambo” ($18.5 million)#3 “27 Dresses” ($13.6 million)#4 “Cloverfield” ($12.7 million)#5 “Untraceable” ($11.2 million)

It was a sequel 20 years in the making, but “Rambo” couldn’t live up to the hype as “Meet the Spartans” drew “First Blood” at the box office, taking in $18.7 million to win the weekend. After last year’s “Epic Movie,” the “300″ parody is the second consecutive spoof flick from the writing and directing team of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer to come in at #1. And the best part? It’s just in time for Oscar season!

“Rambo” was just a tick behind with $18.5 million in its first week. But while Sylvester Stallone was counting dollars and cents for the franchise’s first installment since 1988, we were counting words and deaths. As in, which were there more of in “Rambo”? My money’s on deaths.

Speaking of deaths (this is why I’m a writer, people — smooth transitions), “Cloverfield” dropped like the Statue of Liberty’s head, falling 68.3 percent in its second weekend to come in fourth place with just $12.7 million. It’s the biggest second-week drop in history for a movie that made over $20 million in its first week, and just a shade off the biggest second-week drop for any movie. Sorry J.J. — the secret’s out: If “Cloverfield” ends its run short of a $100 million haul, it’ll be the movie with the biggest-ever debut to do so. Monstrous indeed.

Proving there’s nothing quite like counterprogramming, “27 Dresses” continued to impress in its second weekend, earning $13.6 million for a third-place finish. “Untraceable,” the weekend’s other big new release came in fifth place with $11.2 million.

NEW YORK —  An autopsy on actor Heath Ledger was inconclusive, and more tests are needed, the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office said.

A spokeswoman for the office, Ellen Borakove, said Wednesday that it will take about 10 days to complete the investigation.

There was no obvious indication of suicide or foul play, said NYPD spokesman Paul Browne, who added that cops are “investigating the possibility of an overdose.”

The 28-year-old Australia-born actor’s ex-fiancée, actress Michelle Williams, was flying to New York from Sweden with their 2-year-old daughter, Matilda, her father said.

“It has just broken everybody’s heart in my family,” Larry Williams, Michelle’s dad, told The Daily Telegraph in Australia. “My heart goes out to everyone, his family, my family, we are just very saddened. The saddest thing is his daughter, whom he just loved dearly.”

Oscar-nominee Ledger was found dead Tuesday at his downtown Manhattan residence, face-down and naked at the foot of his bed with prescription sleeping pills in the apartment, police said.

Ledger’s father, Kim Ledger, released a statement on Australian television while surrounded by his family:

“We, Heath’s family, confirm the very tragic, untimely and accidental passing of our dearly loved son, brother and doting father of Matilda. He was found peacefully asleep in his New York apartment by his housekeeper at 3:30 p.m. U.S. time.

“We would like to thank our friends and everyone around the world for their well wishes and kind thoughts at this time. Heath has touched so many people on so many different levels during his short life but few had the pleasure of truly knowing him.

“He was a down to earth, generous, kind-hearted, life-loving and selfless individual who was extremely inspirational to many. Please now respect our families need to grieve and come to terms with our loss privately.”

In the spring of 2001, Heath Ledger sat at the bar in New York City’s Regency Hotel, perched on the precipice of a kind of fame he wasn’t sure he wanted. The 22-year-old Australian actor was about to appear in his first leading role in a Hollywood summer tentpole, a splashy rock & roll jousting movie called A Knight’s Tale, and the newfound attention seemed to make him uncomfortable. As he spoke with a reporter for this magazine, he chain-smoked Camel Lights, fidgeted, and doodled with crayons on cocktail napkins, pressing so hard that the paper ripped. He said that the first time he’d seen his image on the movie’s poster, wearing full medieval armor and a hard stare, he felt so nervous he shook. Out in Hollywood, many were busily mapping out his future for him: big-dollar paydays, hordes of screaming fans trailing his every move, spandex-clad-superhero roles. In fact, he had already been offered the starring role in the newly launched Spider-Man franchise and turned it down. (”I just don’t care for comics,” he said matter-of-factly. ”It would have been stealing someone else’s dream.”) In the face of all of Hollywood’s promises and pressures, Ledger seemed to have his eyes on something more ethereal and indefinable. ”I’m on a f—ing journey,” he said. ”I’m on a walkabout. A lot of people think ambition or success, and they think dollars…. My success is getting underneath that. At the f—ing end of the day, that’s the only thing you’re going to carry with you when you die.”

Tragically, that journey ended on the afternoon of Jan. 22, when the actor was found dead at age 28 in his rented apartment in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood. Ledger was discovered naked in his bed by a housekeeper and a masseuse who had arrived for a regular appointment, a package of ”prescription-type” sleeping pills nearby. (In a New York Times interview last November, Ledger had complained of having difficulty sleeping due to stress, to the point where a double dose of Ambien would only buy him an hour of rest.) There were no illegal drugs in the apartment, chief police spokesman Paul J. Browne reported, no evidence of foul play, and no initial indication of suicide. Pending an autopsy, it was unclear at press time what caused his death and whether prescription medications played a role.

The tragedy struck in the midst of an already hectic day in the entertainment industry, as Hollywood reacted to the morning’s announcement of the Oscar nominations and the latest buzz emanating from Sundance. But word spread with lightning speed via cell phones and BlackBerries, and in nearly every case was met with disbelief. One high-ranking studio exec, after receiving an e-mail stating that Ledger was dead, quickly wrote back: ”What — you mean his career?” Charlize Theron learned the news while walking a red carpet at Sundance. Josh Hartnett was blindsided at a Sundance Q&A by a question about Ledger’s death; he struggled to answer even as the crowd jeered the man who had asked it. The passing of an actor in his prime — he earned his first Oscar nomination at age 26 for Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain and was just months away from reinventing the Joker in the highly anticipated Batman Begins sequel, The Dark Knight — seemed too shocking to absorb at first, while at the same time painfully familiar. Within minutes of the story breaking, some 300 entertainment reporters, cameramen, photographers, and fans began to descend on Ledger’s building, creating a tableau that resembled a grisly perversion of a movie premiere. Bystanders snapped photos on cellphones and paparazzi climbed the fire escape of the building across the street hoping for shots into Ledger’s fourth-floor loft. ”It’s crazy — he was so young,” said one stunned observer.

Director Oliver Stone, a vocal critic of the Bush administration’s handling of Iraq, is putting together a feature film project about the current president, and has tapped Josh Brolin (No Country for Old Men) as his George W.

Stone, who’s shopping around a script completed pre-strike by his Wall Street co-writer Stanley Weiser, told Daily Variety that he does not intend to make a stridently anti-Bush movie, but instead wants to use a style similar to that of The Queen to explain Bush’s motivations and rise to prominence. ”People have turned my political ideas into a cliché, but that is superficial,” Stone told the trade paper. ”I’m a dramatist who is interested in people, and I have empathy for Bush as a human being, much the same as I did for Castro, Nixon, Jim Morrison, Jim Garrison, and Alexander the Great,” he said, referring to the subjects of his previous films. Stone also asserted that his film will aim to offer a ”fair, true portrait” of Bush, and will contain surprises for both fans and detractors of the president.

Filming on Bush could start as soon as April. As for Stone’s other recent project, a movie about the My Lai massacre called Pinkville, UA has pulled the plug, citing reasons related to the writers’ strike — but Stone told Variety he hopes to get that script back and revive it.

Hip-hop star P Diddy was allegedly seen attacking a man at a post-Oscars party by four witnesses, court documents reveal.

Diddy, whose real name is Sean Combs, is accused of attacking Gerard Rechnitzer after hitting on his girlfriend at the swanky Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood.

When Rechnitzer tried to escort his gal pal away, he claims was floored by Combs, who reportedly shouted: “I’ll smack flames out of you’re a*s.”

No criminal charges were ever filed, but Rechnitzer is suing Combs in a civil case. “I just kind of remember seeing Rechnitzer go flying, not flying as in like his feet off the ground, but he went back significantly,” Marianna Ruiz said in her sworn deposition.

Rechnitzer, 27, is seeking unspecified damages in the suit, after prosecutors decided not to press any charges.Combs’ lawyer has branded the allegations as ‘completely baseless.’