In its third week of release The Dark Knight Rises once again trumps all competition to reign supreme in the Box Office battlefield. Honestly, I could have written that sentence two years ago it was such a forgone conclusion.

Bringing in another $36 Million over the weekend, the final Nolan Batman film managed to ease a soft 41% after last week’s rather steep decline. The solid hold helps establish the film third on many of the all time box office speed records.

Unfortunately for the movie, almost across the board it is third to the only two films people want to compare it to, The Avengers and The Dark Knight. It is possible that the movie can climb into the top seven or eight all time and still have a tiny shade of disappointment. Thus is the magic of context.

You may have noticed that there was not a Box Office Report last week. Due to the tragedy in Aurora, Colorado the major studios made a choice to not announce any returns during the weekend, in tribute to the victims. A classy gesture that we at The Flickcast were all to willing to follow.

In any event there was a rather large Box Office event that happened last weekend, so it bears some discussion this week. The Dark Knight Rises debuted to fantastic numbers that fell short of the lofty expectations of we the prognosticators. Still, it managed to break a couple of records and come out the end of a difficult weekend with $160+ Million dollars in the bank.

Naturally people will compare this opening with that of The Avengers and The Dark Knight, and while it is in the same ball park of those two phenomenons, it failed to capture the cultural zeitgeist that propelled them to the next level.

Take this weekend’s returns as an example. The Dark Knight Rises took in another strong $64+ Million to stand number one for a second weekend, however it dropped over 60% in business from its debut frame. A number that is actually solid for a front loaded comic-book film, but is a deeper percentage dip than The Avengers or The Dark Knight ever took at any point in their respective runs.

Ted has set the new standard for original R-Rated comedies, bringing in just over $54 Million dollars during the weekend. The Seth McFarlane directorial debut has established a record for comedies not based on an existing franchise, and led the pack of a very big box office weekend.

In addition to the big Ted weekend, Magic Mike came out strong for an R-Rated male stripper opus. The duel R-Rated comedies actually both over performed estimates to combine for an incredibly strong June weekend.

Magic Mike was able to capitalize on the fervent female movie going audience that was more than ready to swarm to the theater to see Channing Tatum swing his groove thing. Even though the film brought in a very respectable weekend number, it was very top-heavy, with more than half of its opening weekend coming from Friday alone.

Disney/PIXAR’s Brave rounds out the top three with another $34+ Million. The solid third place finish places the PIXAR film well on the path for another $200+ Million domestic total for the venerable animation studio. That said, the 48.7% drop represents a higher than normal number for PIXAR.

Many people have been quick to judge PIXAR to be in a slump. Saying that their last film, Cars 2, was horrible and Brave is just mediocre. I have a feeling that sentiment will erode over time, when people look back and see that Mars Needs Moms received reviews more or less the same as Cars 2, people will realize they might have been too quick declare PIXAR’s creative death.

This, however, is a nuts and bolts box office report, so the most important thing is that Brave has brought in PIXAR’s 13th strait number one opening. A staggering string of success that shows no sign of letting up in the near future. Brave‘s $66+ Million opening weekend is pretty par for the course for a PIXAR film.

Coming in second place is Madagascar 3, cooling off from back to back number one weekends with a cool $20 Million. This good hold comes as a bit of a surprise with the seeming direct completion from the new PIXAR film. The sequel seems to have strong enough word of mouth to potentially make this the most successful Madagascar yet. 

The titan of quality that is Pixar might have stubbed it’s toe last year with the release of the sub-par Cars 2, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are still riding a nearly two decade long winning streak. Creatively, their mandate of doing what isn’t expected has paid off in droves.

What makes Brave such an interesting next step for Pixar is the fact that it is the first film with a female lead who is for all intents and purposes a princess. That’s right, this is a classic Disney princess fairy tale, but done the Pixar way. Fans of Disney and Pixar have reason to be very excited at that prospect.

Disney has just released a third trailer for the film, but instead of just hyper cutting more footage to beautiful music, they opted for an extended scene that does a brilliant job of summing up the general conflict of the movie. You can tell immediately that this film has that Pixar charm we all know and love.

Check out the new trailer after the jump.