Animated sequels in recent history are hardly a slam dunk at the box office, for every Toy Story 3 there are three Happy Feet 2. Thankfully for all of the principles involved, Despicable Me 2 was every bit the hit the former was.

The popularity of the Minions can not be denied as Despicable Me 2 brought it more money than any animated film has ever earned over a five-day span. Granted the Fourth coming on a Thursday is a near perfect storm for a major release, but the final tally of over $142 Million speaks for itself. Even when you shave the first two days off the tally, the traditional three-day weekend was right in line with the monster $80+ million Monsters University brought in a few weeks ago.

Coming up in second place for the holiday stretch was the sputtering Lone Ranger. It seems like high-profile bombs have become commonplace, and everything about the action western screamed this would be another one. Guess what? It was! Coming in at just over $29 million for the three-day, and just under $49 since Wednesday, the film was not the same abject failure John Carter was, but it is far from the performance one expects from the same crew that gave us the Pirates of the Caribbean films.

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.

Coming as a surprise to no one, Oz: The Great and Powerful has come in first in the weekend box office for a second weekend in a row. The film is performing strong as the first blockbuster of the year, even if it is not reaching Alice in Wonderland or Hunger Games heights.  Still the film should get well over $200 Million domestically and exist as another nice win for Raimi and Disney.

In second place, the Halle Berry thriller The Call had a surprisingly strong debut. The film brought in just over $17 Million and is one of the stronger Halle Berry starring openings in quite a long time. The movie was cheap to make and easy to market so this is a really solid early year win for all of the people involved.

The winning stops at number two as the opening of The Incredible Burt Wonderstone is anything but incredible or wonderful. Apparently the film is less funny than my word play and connected with audiences thusly. Comparing the film to other high concept comedies it falls fall below its peers. In fact it barely made 2/3rds of what the Will Ferrell bomb Semi-Pro made a few years ago.

You know you have had a bad opening weekend when last year’s laughing-stock, John Carter, is looking at your totals and snickers.

Jack the Giant Slayer lead the way of a first week in March box office that came in like a limping lamb. The Bryan Singer directed film made a poor $28 Million over the weekend coming in over two million short of last year’s box office atom bomb.

If the top of the weekend releases was bad, the rest of the top ten was worse. Despite competition from two other new releases, the hit comedy Identity Thief still managed to hold onto second place with $9.7 million. That put the R-rated comedy over $100 million total and setting it on pace to be director Seth Gordon’s biggest hit yet, providing one of the few silver linings from this weekend.

It was a strong weekend for Wreck-It Ralph as the Disney animated feature brought in half a million during its opening frame. However, before we get to that some house cleaning from last week.

We missed out on an opportunity to celebrate Argo‘s rise to the number one spot last weekend. Ben Affleck’s film had a solid debut, but it was on the low-end of expectations. In the weeks following, Argo has been holding incredibly well for a movie that is playing on so many screens. Culminating in finally taking the top spot last weekend in an otherwise weak weekend.

How did it do this weekend? Well since it wasn’t number one again you will have to wait to find out. The winner this weekend was Wreck-It Ralph, another Disney animated feature that proves there is still some magic left in the mouse house proper. Coming out with nearly $50 Million, Ralph managed one of Disney’s biggest animated openings. Of course even those lofty numbers pale in comparison to the PIXAR average, but from the studios that brought us Home on the Range, this is great business.

Oh late October, how you are filled with mystery and intrigue in regards to the Box Office. Last year at this time the third Paranormal Activity ‘film’ set October records with a huge opening. This year another record has been set on this weekend, but not by the sequel to the found footage ghost-a-palooza.

But first we must report on the winner of this weekend, and we use that term loosely. Paranormal Activity 4 could only muster about $30 Million in its opening frame. Now I know what you are saying: ‘Hey, pompous box office reporting guy, $30 Million is a huge first weekend this time of year, especially for a cheap film with a built-in home video audience.’ You would be 100% right, but in this day and age of sequels and remakes, success is often judged on the franchise average and not the actual performance. In that light, PA4 is going to go down as the worst performing of the bunch, and probably by a wide margin too.

Over on the happier end of the spectrum is the growing beast that is Argo. Last weekend the film came in a close second with a solid near $20 Million weekend. This weekend it did something rather incredible, Argo only dropped 14.6% with a total close to $17 Million. This is the best hold ever for a film in such a wide release over a non holiday weekend. Word of mouth has not just buoyed the film, but it has turned a nice performing movie into a record breaker, and one that will likely get much more attention before direct competition arrives in the form of Bond, Jame Bond.  

Well kudos to Taken 2, it was speculated in this very spot last week that the poor word of mouth and reviews would put a big dip into the action sequel’s take this weekend. The wrongness is strong with this one.

The Liam Neeson punch-fest held off the critical darling Argo for the top spot yet again in the box office trenches. The film brought in an estimated $22.5 Million over the three-day weekend with a relatively healthy dip of only 54.6%. For an R-rated action film with a built-in audience who presumably all went and saw it the first weekend, that drop is pretty strong.

Argo came up in second, with a still very respectable $20 Million weekend. The Affleck directed ‘incredible true story’ did about as well as a movie of this nature can reasonably expect to do, and with the heaps and heaps of love and positive word of mouth this film is getting it should play well for a few more weeks.

The consensus seems to be that Taken 2 is a lesser version of its predecessor, but in this day and age an opening weekend has as much to do with the reception of the last film than anything else. Which ends up being a very good industry trend for the Liam Neeson sequel as the movie racked in one of the biggest October openings ever.

Coming in at a cool $50 million, Taken 2 easily won this weekend’s box office tussle. The reviews and word of mouth have not been kind to the film, so it might have a big drop off next weekend, but at this point in time the movie is a win. If it some how finds some minimal legs amid the poor word of mouth, the movie can still get over $100 million and end up in the hit category.

Hotel Transylvania held very well to come into second place with $26+ million over the weekend. The success of Transylvania should be exciting to any one who claims to be a true fan of animation despite the celebrity-centric casting. The movie was the directorial debut of Genndy Tartakovsky, the mastermind behind Samurai Jack, Dexter’s Laboratory and Star Wars: Clone Wars. With this film a hit hopefully we will be seeing much more from this animation great.

Netflix has had a rather rough year, and today’s news only adds a bit more salt into some open wounds. Just days after their exclusivity deal with up and coming premium movie channel Epix expires, one of their biggest competitors has signed on, greatly enhancing their instant library.

Deadline reports that Epix has just reached a deal with Amazon to provide their content through their Prime Instant Video service:

The arrangement more than doubles Amazon Prime Instant Video’s offerings, and knocks some of the wind out of its chief competitor: Netflix. The streaming video company’s shares were down about 10% shortly after the market opened this morning… “We think customers will really enjoy watching new titles like The Avengers, Iron Man 2 and The Hunger Games on their Kindle Fire, PlayStation 3, Xbox, iPad or any of the other of the Amazon Instant Video compatible devices,” says Amazon VP Bill Carr.

While it doesn’t appear that Netflix will be losing any of this content, it is certainly a blow to see Amazon now offer more and more first run, popular content on their streaming service. It is also said that now that Epix is free from the exclusivity contracts it had with Netflix it is looking at other services to partner with as well. A move that is a boon to the public, but just another body blow to the company that changed how we digest film.