One was a slam dunk, the other was a blockbuster to be that came into the weekend stinking of behind the scenes drama. Yet in the end both hit theaters this week and obliterated expectations.

Monsters University is the prequel to one of the older PIXAR classics, telling the tale of how everyone’s favorite boogie men, Mike and Sully, learned their scare trade. The film took in $82 million over the weekend giving PIXAR its second highest opening ever, and their 14th strait number one debut. Lets just ponder that for a second, even as the creative armor of the premier animation house of the west shows some chinks in their armor, they maintain a perfect record on the financial side of the movie equation. The quality of the recent PIXAR films is up to some debate, but what can’t be denied is they still know how to make a movie people want to see.

While everyone and their mother knew MU would be a hit, the big surprise of the weekend came from the Brad Pitt zombie blockbuster, World War Z. The studio had modest expectations initially, and the general geek community had no expectations. The film veered far from the source material that is much beloved, the movie was plagued by re-shoots and seeming instability from the set, and it is a PG-13 zombie film which just feels wrong. Despite all of that working against it in the buzz department, the film was well sold and generally positive reviews helped to make all those other issues all but disappear. The net result was $66 million at the box office and a lot of turned heads.

The Fast and Furious franchise is among the most curious in cinema history. Over a decade ago, when the first film came out, no one could have foreseen half a dozen films and hundreds of millions in total box office. Yet here we stand looking back at yet another weekend where the number 1 film is both speedy and a little irate.

The film brought in an estimated $34.5 Million in its second weekend, which was just good enough to take first place. The film followed suit with its predecessors and took a nasty dip in weekend number 2, but the lack of a big film releasing during the slow, post Memorial Day weekend left enough room for Vin Diesel to have another weekend with the penthouse view.

The big winner of the weekend, however, is second place finisher Now You See Me. The magician/heist film boasted a way-above-expectation $28 Million, which proves once again that putting Morgan Freeman in you trailers is a fast track to box office windfall. The film has a loaded cast, and provided enough of a change of pace to carve out a really nice audience in the middle of blockbuster season.

That’s right fans of intense, adult TV drama, NBC has apparently heard you and decided to give Hannibal a second season of 13 episodes. The announcement came today, almost two full weeks after NBC’s Upfront presentation.

The series, based on the novel Red Dragon by Thomas Harris and developed for television by Bryan Fuller, will return mid-season (after most of NBC’s new Fall shows tank). We kid, we kid.

“We’re so proud of Bryan’s vision for a show that is richly textured, psychologically complex, and very compelling,” NBC Entertainment president Jennifer Salke said. “There are many great stories still to be told.”

Could not agree more. This show is almost too good for TV and with several other entities, including Amazon, waiting in the wings should NBC not renew the series, we were confidant it would cary on in some form or another.

Fortunately, it looks like NBC decided to make a good decision here and go with the quality. We’re very glad they did.

After 20,000,000 downloads sold, Minecraft could be on pace to take down the Sims as the top selling PC game. So obviously, people are looking to get their piece of the pie but Mojang cofounder Carl Manneh says they aren’t looking to sell. In a recent interview with Reuters, Manneh explained why he and the rest of the founders of Mojang have no interest in selling.

When discussing the money, Manneh said, “We are living the dream, really… An exit would be huge, but do we really need that money? In our case, we have the cash flow. We have more money than we need.” Currently, the XBox Live version of Minecraft sells for $20 a pop, in addition to the PC, Mac and mobile versions of the game.

It’s difficult to know if this is a good thing or a bad thing but nevertheless, it’s happening. Disney is buying Lucasfilm and the rights to the Star Wars franchise for a reported $4 Bilion. That’s “Billion.”

Here’s the full press release:

Burbank, CA and San Francisco, CA, October 30, 2012 – Continuing its strategy of delivering exceptional creative content to audiences around the world, The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) has agreed to acquire Lucasfilm Ltd. in a stock and cash transaction. Lucasfilm is 100% owned by Lucasfilm Chairman and Founder, George Lucas.

Under the terms of the agreement and based on the closing price of Disney stock on October 26, 2012, the transaction value is $4.05 billion, with Disney paying approximately half of the consideration in cash and issuing approximately 40 million shares at closing. The final consideration will be subject to customary post-closing balance sheet adjustments.