Traditionally the long Memorial Day weekend marked the start of the Summer movie season. In the last decade that unofficial date has shifted to the beginning of May, but this is still a marquee weekend for film. And what better way to celebrate that than with the return of one of cinema’s biggest stars.

Will Smith hasn’t been in a movie in nearly four years, and his return also marks the return of one of his most beloved characters, Agent J. Men in Black III had a solid debut bringing in $70 Million over the four-day weekend. That comes in a bit below expectations, but ranks as a strong debut none-the-less considering where the franchise was.

While not an actual reboot, the sequel actually proves that the Men in Black universe is still capable of being an entertaining summer destination. The movie also did well overseas, but only doing well is not what Sony was hoping for. If this franchise makes its way to a fourth installment positive word of mouth is going to have to give this film some legs.

Speaking of hot gams, The Avengers might have dropped to second place, but it still managed to impress. Bringing in over $46 Million over the extra long frame represented a very slight dip for the film. This was extra impressive when you consider Men in Black is direct competition for its target audience.

Before I recount the gory details of Battleship‘s disastrous opening weekend, it behooves me to let you know yet again that The Avengers won the weekend. I adore The Avengers, but it has made so much money so fast that we are just about out of things to say about it in the Box Office report.

It settled a measly 46.6% for another $55+ million at the domestic box office. The Avengers scored a few more speed records, such as fastest film to $450 Million domestic, in 10 less days than the next best film. Next weekend will be interesting though, its first (potentially) non-first place hold will give a decent indication of how big of a final total we can expect.

The good news for Battleship is that it isn’t a complete and utter disaster worldwide. With its international release weeks in the film has already made over $200 Million. Of course it made a paltry $25 Million here in the states and will be viewed as a the new John Carter (and THAT film’s reign as biggest cinematic black eye might end up short-lived).

In its second weekend in release The Avengers brought in over $100 Million bucks. I will write that again for effect. In its second weekend in release The Avengers brought in over $100 Million bucks!

That absurd second weekend haul obliterates the second weekend record just as the debut frame obliterated records last week. For reference the previous best second weekend was Avatar with a bit over $75 million. The movie has already cleared a billion in total Box Office and it has only been in US cinemas for 10 days.

So yes, The Avengers continues to draw in the masses and shatter records left and right. At this point in time it seems plausible that the movie will end up as the third most successful film of all time. Why not the top slot if it is doing better than everything else right now? The start of the Summer season is just to hard of a spot for the movie to have the kind of legs required to break that pesky 2 billion dollar plateau.

One thing will be certain in a few weeks. Once Summer starts there will be more high profile scores than Fridays and some good music might fall through the cracks. Which is precisely why I am so excited to bring you this early review of Danny Elfman’s score from Dark Shadows.

This score ranked as one of my most anticipated of the early summer season, and that anticipation was made all the more severe when we listened to the expanded preview a few weeks back. So suffice to say I am ready to dig into the 14th collaboration between Danny Elfman and Tim Burton.

That is a lot of feature film scores from a director with a very distinct style, and recently there has been a lot of concern about repetitiveness in Elfman’s music. You can only go to that stylized dark well so many times, and eventually it will be dried up completely.

So does this umpteenth collaboration yield beautiful sonic rewards, or is this little more than a Beetlejuice or Sleep Hallow remix album?

There are a few certainties in life, death, taxes and a Danny Elfman score for the next Tim Burton movie. Their creative collaborations have always been among the high points of each new Burton film, even if sometimes the music can sound overly familiar.

In recent years the Elfman music associated with the last few Burton films has been quite exceptional. Elfman’s ‘Burton’ style has been perfected to the point that it sounds effortless. So of course we are excited to hear what Elfman has in store for Dark Shadows in a few weeks.

Well, wait no more, says Warner Bros. as they have put a very expanded preview of the score up on their official website. On the site you will get a full minute and a half of each track, which is more than enough to get a really good sense for what type of music we have in store for us.

Having listened to the expanded preview, I can happily report that this score does not seem to disappoint. The trailers for the movie suggest the film has a bit of a goofy tone, but for the musics part it is all dark and moody. The likely juxtaposition between the music and the tone of the movie feels very right considering the filmmakers involved.

So go check out the expanded preview now and be on the look out for a full review here on The Flickcast when the film is released in early May.