Los Angeles ? Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg wound up in a dead heat with a cartoon kid and her goofy alien pal.

“Minority Report,” Cruise and Spielberg’s sci-fi thriller, took in $36.9 million in its first weekend, according to estimates Sunday by its distributor, 20th Century Fox. That would put it barely ahead of the animated “Lilo & Stitch,” which debuted with $35.8 million, according to its studio, Disney.

Disney and other studios had tracked “Lilo & Stitch” in first place, slightly ahead of “Minority Report.”

Studios base weekend projections on ticket sales reported by theaters for Friday and Saturday and estimates for Sunday. When final numbers come in today, “Lilo & Stitch” might edge out “Minority Report” for No. 1.

Bruce Snyder, head of distribution for Fox, said his estimates put “Lilo & Stitch” at $36.8 million, just $100,000 behind “Minority Report,” making it too close to call.

“I’m not claiming No. 1. I’m not claiming anything,” Snyder said. “I’d call it a tie.”

Even if its rank changes, “Minority Report” may retain bragging rights as the No. 1 film, since many news outlets pay greater attention to Sunday estimates than they do to final Monday numbers.

“The first reporting of the box office, in my mind, tends to be the one that sticks in people’s minds,” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations, which tracks ticket sales. “You can have people proclaiming a movie as No. 1 for the rest of the week, even if it winds up being No. 2 come Monday.”

“Lilo & Stitch” clearly would be No. 1 based on actual tickets sold. It managed to do virtually the same amount of cash business as “Minority Report,” though a much higher percentage of “Lilo & Stitch” admissions came from cheaper tickets for children and adult matinees.

Many in Hollywood say that instead of counting dollars, the industry should track movies based on number of tickets sold, a method used in some European countries. That would provide a fairer head-to-head ranking of films and eliminate the inflation factor that skews all-time box-office charts toward newer movies, which place higher than older films because of ever-rising ticket prices.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at North American theaters, according to Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc.:

1. “Minority Report,” $36.9 million.

2. “Lilo & Stitch,” $35.8 million.

3. “Scooby-Doo,” $24.4 million.

4. “The Bourne Identity,” $14.8 million.

5. “The Sum of All Fears,” $7.9 million.

6. “Windtalkers,” $6.7 million.

7. “Juwanna Mann,” $6 million.

8. “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood,” $5.7 million.

9. “Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones,” $5.1 million.

10. “Spider-Man,” $4.4 million.