YOUR MONDAY MORNING DOSSIER

As the summer hurtles towards its close, Tiger Woods proves money, winning the PGA Championship, the NFL nears opening kickoff, Christina Aguilera’s Basics racks up sales and Snakes on a Plane proves to be yet another Internet buzz that fails to pay off. Motherf***king snakes on a motherf***ing plane!

New Line Cinema’s much hyped Snakes on a Plane pulled in approximately $15.3m over the weekend, but if it weren’t for the $1.4m it grossed for its Thursday opening, it would have filed to top Talladega Nights, which pulled in $14.1m for a three-week total of $114.7 million. Opening weekend estimates for Snakes, which cost around $35 million to produce, were between $20 and $40 million. The rest of the Top 10 box office included World Trade Center ($10.8m), the teen comedy Accepted ($10.1m), the dance flick Step Up ($9.8m), the animated Barnyard ($7.4m), critically acclaimed cult comedy Little Miss Sunshine ($5.6m), Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest ($5m), the Duff sisters vehicle Material Girls ($4.6m) and the horror film Pulse ($3.5m). The three-day gross was down 7.5% from a similar weekend last year, but the year-to-date total was up 7.0% from 2005.

Look for Christina Aguilera’s RCA album, Back to Basics, to easily grab the #1 spot on this week’s HITS Top 50, with a total that could soar past 360k, one of four debuts that will take the first four places on the chart. Columbia R&B crooner Lyfe Jennings (125-135k), Capitol Nashville’s Trace Adkins (115-125k) and Disney’s Cheetah Girls 2 soundtrack (85-90k) will also crash the Top 5 with lone holdover Sony Music Group’s Now 22. Capitol’s sister R&B foursome Cherish (75-80k) and Eminem posse member Obie Trice’s new Shady/Aftermath effort (75-80k) are the week’s other two Top 10 bows. On Tuesday, OutKast’s long-awaited LaFace/ZLG soundtrack to Idlewild hits stores, with the movie opening wide in theatres Friday (8/25). Check out the N.Y. Times Sunday magazine profile on Big Boi and Andre 3000 here.

Bob Dylan’s Modern Times, his first new studio album in five years, hits retail a week from Tuesday (8/29), but critics are already calling it his best since, unh, 2001’s Love and Theft. The N.Y. Times’ always-erudite Jon Pareles weighs in with his opinion here.

Usher’s upcoming Broadway debut as Billy Flynn in Chicago is covered by the N.Y. Times here and the L.A. Times here.

The Killers’ sophomore Island/IDJ album, Sam’s Town, comes out Oct. 3, and the band will kick off a month-long U.S. tour on Oct. 6-7, with a pair of dates at L.A.’s Wiltern LG Theatre, then stops in S.F., Portland, Seattle, Utah, Denver, Chicago, Detroit, Atlantic City, Philadelphia, N.Y., Boston and a finale at their hometown Las Vegas’ Vegoose Festival on Oct. 28.

The N.Y. Post is at it again with the headline, “Snake on a Plane,” to announce the U.S. arrival of John Mark Karr, the confessed killer of JonBenet Ramsey, extradited from Thailand to stand trial for the murder, here. Coincidentally, the N.Y. Daily News used the same phrase on its website.

The Post also reports that Osama bin Laden has such a crush on Whitney Houston, whom he calls “the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen,” he considered a hit on Bobby Brown. Dude must’ve seen that reality show. Also, that Prince will perform at the Entertainment Tonight/People magazine Emmy party at the Mondrian in Hollywood on Sunday (8/27).

Check out the season premieres of Fox’s Prison Break and Vanished tonight, along with the second episode of Showtime’s wonderful Weeds, while OutKast will appear on Late Show with David Letterman, Dave Navarro and Panic Channel on Jimmy Kimmel and E-40 with T-Pain on Craig Ferguson.

ON THIS DATE:

In 1967: Bob Dylan re-signed with Columbia upon the expiration of his initial five-year contract.

In 1967: Pink Floyd abandoned their German tour after singer Syd Barrett disappeared.

In 1972: Police received a bomb threat before a Jefferson Airplane show in Akron, OH. The heavy police presence incensed the crowd, who threw rocks at a police car. The cops responded by using tear gas, which caused Airplane bassist Jack Casady to denounce them from the stage. Police arrested Casady. Grace Slick and Paul Kantner gave chase after Casady was taken to the venue’s basement and, after an exchange, Slick was maced in the face and Kantner was knocked to the floor by overzealous cops.

In 1976: The Rolling Stones played the Knebworth Festival before an audience of 200,000 and said it would be their last ever British show.

In 1994: John Denver faced drunk-driving charges after wrapping his Porsche around a tree.

In 1994: Bob Dylan played his 600^th concert on the so-called Neverending Tour in Columbus, OH.

In 1995: R.E.M. sued Hershey Foods and said their name was improperly used in a Kit Kat bar promotion. The suit was later dropped.

In 1996: David Byrne sued the other members of Talking Heads when he learned they intended to tour without him as “The Heads.” The suit was settled out of court.

In 1997: Carlos Santana unveiled his own line of T-shirts at a press conference in San Francisco.

In 2003: Fred Durst took to Limp Bizkit's web site and announced that the name of the band's upcoming album had changed… again. No longer Panty Sniffer, the CD was re-titled Results May Vary.

In 2005: Boy band McFly knocked James Blunt's "You're Beautiful" off the top of the U.K. singles chart with "I'll Be OK." Blunt remained atop the U.K. albums chart with Back to Bedlam.

In 2005: The Rolling Stones kicked off their Bigger Bang world tour in Boston.