If you get the clumsy baseball references in the title than you get that this weekend was won by 42. The Jackie Robinson biopic earned an estimated $27+ Million, giving the film one of the strongest baseball movie debuts of all time. The film took advantage of perfect timing and well delivered advertising to get out of the gate strong. Despite the impending the parade of competition, the new baseball season should continue to allow the film to stay relevant for a few more weeks than it really should.

Bombing into second place is Scary Movie 5 which managed to pull in $15 Million, and providing tangible proof that no one cares about the spoof franchise any more. If any one is a victor in this instance it would be the Wayne’s Brothers. They conjured up the franchise with the first brilliant film, but eventually parted ways by the third film. The brothers Waynes got back into the horror spoof game earlier this year with A Haunted House, which shines an even larger light on Scary Movie 5‘s failure.

Sticking in third place is the newest hit from Dreamworks, The Croods. Easing a very light 36%, the film brought in another $13 Million giving the film a total haul of nearly $150 million, which is huge for a new animated IP from a studio with a mixed track record. There still remains scant children entertainment competition in the upcoming Box Office calender, so the film should still perform well in the coming weeks.

This weekend had the distinct feel of a throwback celebration with a Reboot-make, a re-release and a sequel to an 80’s iconic franchise inhabiting three of the top four positions.

Coming in at number one, with $26 Million, was the incredibly well advertised Evil Dead which played very strongly for an extreme horror film aimed squarely at a specific niche. Due, in part, to that specific audience target, the film’s reviews have been mixed and the word of mouth has been less than stellar on the whole. Still, the film plays very well to its target audience and with a big weekend under its belt will go into the books as a big win for all involved.

The next two spots ended up being an estimated tie between last weekend’s top two films. G.I. Joe: Retaliation and The Croods. Both brought in an estimated $21.1 Million, with the tie break going to last weeks number 1 because the Rock is in that one and the main event at Wrestlemania this weekend.

The current trend in sequel box office returns is tied to perception. Gone are the days of diminishing returns as a rule, these are the golden times for franchises. How the general public feels about the franchise is now king, and the thing about feelings are, they can be changed.

Case in point, GI: Joe: Retaliation.

The franchise had a below average first film that left a sour taste in the mouths of cinema-goers. It did have a strong opening weekend and final total gross so a sequel was inevitable, but something had to be done to ensure the public perception didn’t bury the new film before it had a shot.

Warming the hearts of movie executives everywhere, GI: Joe Retaliation proved that franchise perception can be fixed and sequels to poorly received films have a shot to come out as strong as its predecessor without waiting on word of mouth or reviews to set in.

There used to be a rule in feature animation. PIXAR was the king of quality and they had a perfect record, Dreamworks had Shrek and a whole train load of Disney and PIXAR knockoffs with star-studded casts. Most of the times those films were turds, and provided a sharp contrast that might have aided in PIXAR’s incredible win streak by providing such horrible comparison.

Well that was the past boys and girls, because the quality gap has been dwindling faster than The Croods just past 100 Million at the international box office. Dreamworks newest animated feature had a solid-to-great opening weekend bringing in over $44 Million. Which puts the film on par with other recent Dreamworks its How to Train Your Dragon and Megamind.

A big weekend was probably expected for The Croods, however, the weekend was not without its shocker. The action flick Olympus Has Fallen surpassed even the most generous of projections to bring in over $30 Million over the weekend. Which is a huge win for an action-centirc film in a year where so many have died horrible box office deaths.

Silly, silly fun. There’s not much of a plot — The Croods are a family of cave-dwellers whose home is threatened by earthquakes; the dad Grug (Nicolas Cage) is over protective; the daughter Eep (Emma Stone) is curious; they meet up with a smarty-pants guy named Guy (Ryan Reynolds) who teaches them the secret of fire, among other things; and they set off to find a new home.

Grug, whose mantra is “Always be afraid!” immediately dislikes Guy while Eep is immediately attracted to him, and in the background are the rest of the Croods, who have their moments but are played for jokes; maybe they could have been something more, but before they can, the earthquake chases them off. There’s two running gags that persist the entire film, and there’s some ugly character design, but those are the biggest flaws.

And they’re easy to overlook because everything else looks so good. Granted, this doesn’t need to be in 3-D, as the lusciousness of the backgrounds, from crags to forests to plains to dried-out oceans encircle and captivate on their own, without added gimmicks. More fun is the creature designs, which must have had even the animators laughing. Each one is a Darwinian nightmare, conjured by a gaggle of mad scientists.

There’s flying turtles, land-whales, two lemurs attached by a single tail and a flock of birds that look like toucans, though their mouths open right below the eyes. Cute at first, then they swarm on one of the land-whales and pick it clean.

Despite that, the emphasis is clearly on the visuals, as are the gags. The talents of Cage, Stone, and Reynolds, as well as Cloris Leachman and Catherine Keener, aren’t necessary. None stand out, but then there’s little the film requires of them. Of course we have the requisite familial tensions and affirmations of love between those who need to hear it — they aren’t earned and slow the movie down considerably whenever they’re brought up, but they’re not often and don’t last long.