Sexlessness Sells

"The 40-Year-Old Virgin" (Universal), starring Steve Carell as a loner nerd who loses his innocence rather late in life to a divorced mother, played by Catherine Keener, opened at No. 1 with $20.6 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates. Like "Wedding Crashers," which has been in the Top 5 for six weeks, it successfully blends romance and raunch. Audiences who were in the mood for a thriller turned to "Red Eye" (DreamWorks), this week's No. 2; starring Rachel McAdams and Cillian Murphy, and directed by Wes Craven, the film opened strongly with $16.5 million. "Four Brothers" (Paramount), the revenge drama starring Mark Wahlberg, which opened at No. 1 last weekend, dropped 39 percent to No. 3 with $13 million, bringing its cumulative sales to $43.6 million. "Wedding Crashers" (New Line) was No. 4 with $8.2 million (cumulative sales of $177.9 million), and "Skeleton Key" (Universal) was No. 5 with $7.4 million in ticket sales.CATHERINE BILLEY

Holy Pose, Batman!

Though cultural critics have long suspected a homoerotic component to the relationship between Batman and Robin, an artist's paintings that turn subtext into subject has gone too far for DC Comics. BBC News reported on Friday that the company threatened legal action if Kathleen Cullen Fine Arts, a Chelsea gallery, did not remove watercolors by Mark Chamberlain showing Batman and Robin embracing, kissing or posing semi-nude in only a cape or another piece of costume. The paintings were exhibited in February, and seven of the images were later posted on Artnet.com, which has also been asked to take them down. Ms. Cullen told the BBC that DC Comics wanted all unsold work handed over to the company. DC Comics was unavailable for comment.

Singer Missing

Though her second record is climbing the charts in Britain, the American jazz singer Madeleine Peyroux has not appeared for promotional work and her record company is concerned she may be missing. The label, Universal Classics, told the BBC that it had hired a private detective to trace Ms. Peyroux. "Anxious record company bosses and her management company have been trying to contact her for nearly a week to no avail," a label spokesman told the BBC. "She has simply disappeared." Ms. Peyroux's album, "Careless Love," rose to No. 3 on Billboard's HeatSeekers chart in Britain this year, and she appeared on the television show "Top of the Pops" this month. In 1996, her debut album, "Dreamland," received rave reviews but she retreated from public life to busk, for seven years, in Paris.

Hendrix's Home

A plan to make Jimi Hendrix's boyhood home in Seattle part of a community music center may be in jeopardy. A temporary restraining order kept the city from demolishing the two-bedroom house, where Hendrix had lived in the mid-1950's, but on Thursday, a King County Superior Court judge, Palmer Robinson, refused to extend the order, The Associated Press reported. Supporters have until Sept. 1 to appeal. In 2001, the James Marshall Hendrix Foundation paid more than $30,000 to buy the house and move it to a city-owned lot. The foundation says city officials have broken promises to cooperate on renovating the house into a center for music lessons, while the city says the foundation has missed deadlines to move the house and submit plans for the project. A foundation lawyer said in court that the house might be moved to Renton, Wash., where Hendrix is buried.

Garden of Artist's Devising

Grappling with questions of security and freedom after 9/11, a public art project opening today takes the form of a 19th-century horticultural maze inside the Winter Garden at the World Financial Center, near ground zero. Titled "Homeland Security Garden," the installation is made up of "safety kits" that the New York-based conceptual artist Chang-Jin Lee created in collaboration with members of diverse groups. The kits contain personal objects that evoke feelings of security in the participants, while the maze - which visitors can walk through - represents the complex world situation. The installation is on view through Sept. 15.

Mishima Film Found

With the Film Forum and the Museum of Modern Art both presenting series on Japanese cinema, fans may be interested to learn of the discovery of a film by the novelist Yukio Mishima that was long thought destroyed. When Mishima killed himself in 1970 at a military command post in Tokyo, after calling on members of the army to rise up in a coup so the emperor's power could be restored, "Yukoku" ("Patriotism"), which he had directed and starred in four years earlier, was thought to be a preview of his death. Set to music by Wagner, the silent film followed an Imperial Japanese Army lieutenant who commits seppuku, or ritual suicide, rather than take part in a coup attempt. All copies of the movie were thought destroyed, at the request of his widow, Yoko. But now the original negatives have been discovered in a tea box at a warehouse at the author's home in Tokyo, The Daily Yomiuri reported Friday. The movie's producer, Hiroaki Fujii, 78, said that the negatives were in perfect condition and that the film would be released on DVD.

Footnotes

The Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and radio host Studs Terkel, 93, is recovering after undergoing open-heart surgery. Mr. Terkel left Rush University Medical Center in Chicago on Wednesday, a little more than a week after the surgery, The Associated Press reported. Mr. Terkel, whose books include "The Good War: An Oral History of World War II," said he intended to continue working. A collection of his interviews with performers, including Louis Armstrong and Bob Dylan, is due out next month. ... The soprano Renée Fleming has dropped out of the world premiere of a one-woman mini-opera, "At the Statue of Venus," by the composer Jake Heggie and the playwright Terrence McNally, PlaybillArts.com reported. Ms. Fleming's mother is ill, so Kristin Clayton will perform instead at the opening of the new Opera Colorado hall in Denver on Sept. 10. ... Madonna, who broke several bones in a horse-riding accident in England last week, said she was "grateful and overwhelmed by everyone's good wishes." The singer, 47, told The Sun, "As soon as doctors give me the O.K., I expect to be right back on a horse and riding again."