No, even I didn’t see this one coming. Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema are reporting ‘Sex and the City’ grossed $26.9 million yesterday (Friday). I’ve been very optimistic about Sex’ performance, but I never thought it would have a shot at $70 million for the weekend. Meanwhile, ‘Indiana Jones 4′ is doing a little less than expected, just like we saw in our weekly box office roundup. Spielberg’s oldie took in $12.2 million, meaning it would come in at a little over $40 million for the weekend. But when I said ‘Sex and the City’ could beat Indy, I didn’t think it would actually happen.

The other new release, ‘The Strangers,’ surprised as well. The cheap $10 million thriller made an impressive $7.5 million. Universal must have seen the potential hole it could fill between Sex and Indy. The Liv Tyler vehicle has a shot at $25 million for the weekend.

Lastly, the switch has finally happened. ‘Iron Man’ took $3.7 million, while ‘Prince Caspian’ came no further than $3.4 million. Sorry Disney, your $200 million pet is on its way out.

More numbers as they come in.

In a court hearing June 6, Christopher Tolkien will try to terminate the rights to ‘The Hobbit.’ The 83 year old son of J.R.R. Tolkien accuses New Line Cinema of ‘accounting chicanery,’ also known as ‘Hollywood accounting.’ He says the studio still owes his family $160 million of the $6 billion it made from the three pictures. They only received an upfront payment of $62,500, so he claims.

J.R.R. Tolkien, who thought his books were unstageable, is said to have sold the rights for a 7.5% share of profits when he had to pay a tax bill in 1969. And the Tolkien Trust, which is run by Christopher and his sister Priscilla have never been pleased with New Line Cinema’s adaptations. It’s not known how big of a threat this is for the $300 million ‘The Hobbit’ project. New Line Cinema and Time Warner declined to comment.

The people at Time Warner already laid off 450 employees when they got their hands on New Line Cinema earlier this year. And now they are shutting down two independent studios to cut even more costs.

CEO Jeff Bewkes is shutting down Picturehouse and Warner Independent Pictures to stop duplicate costs for production, marketing and distribution. You would think these studios work independently and there would be no reason for double costs, but apparently this is not how it works.

COO Alan Horn says he is still “confident the spirit of independent filmmaking will continue to have a presence at Warner Bros.” Let’s hope so, it would be a shame to totally lose two independent movie studios in one day.