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.

This looks pretty fun. Look for the movie to arrive on June 21. Meantime, enjoy the trailer below.

As much as we love Disney and a lot of the things they do like Wreck-It Ralph, even we notice that they don’t always come up with all their own concepts. Usually it is something that has been successful in the past and they put a Disney twist on it to turn it into an even bigger success. Cinderella, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast and tons more are all examples of this. So, it’s no surprise that Disney and Avalanche Software would be following the success of the toys to video game combo of Skylanders with the announcement of Disney Infinity.

Using a special hardware base accessory, players will be able to unlock new in game content and characters for Disney Infinity. Sounds familiar right? Disney Infinity will be following a model similar to that of Activision’s Skylanders franchise. Players will be able to take purchased toys and put them on a base that will read the figure and unlock characters and items in the game.

In the trailer below, you’ll see characters from Pirates of the Caribbean, The Incredibles, Monsters University, Cars, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Toy Story and more that will most likely be on the list of playable characters and toys coming out for Disney Infinity.

Monsters Inc is one of those classic PIXAR films that somehow manages to get better with age. It also happened to be the first PIXAR film that was released that confirmed that the animation studio was entering into a golden age, and not one hit wonder.

So people have been interested in a sequel for quite some time, structurally the movie doesn’t lead directly into another story so the filmmakers needed to come up with a good reason to revisit these characters before they moved forward with one.

That good reason presented itself as a prequel that exposed our main characters younger days in college. Check out the synopsis for more full story details:

Mike Wazowski and James P. Sullivan are an inseparable pair, but that wasn’t always the case. From the moment these two mismatched monsters met they couldn’t stand each other. “Monsters University” unlocks the door to how Mike and Sulley overcame their differences and became the best of friends.

A lot of people have the idea PIXAR is in a  bit of a slump, I respectfully disagree. Cars 2 might not have been the same level of artistic high like so much of the PIXAR catalog, but it was way better than people gave it credit for. Hopefully the upcoming slate of films, including Monsters University, restores the luster to the greatest force in animation since Walt himself.

Check out the full trailer after the jump.

Just a short while after it was announced Pixar’s upcoming sequel to 2001’s Monsters Inc. will actually be a prequel, it looks like Pixar and Disney may have spoken too soon, as the film is now getting pushed back to 2013.

We’re not looking at a massive push, just 6 or 7 months. According to THR, that hasn’t stopped Disney from filling up that prime open box office time.

Disney is pushing back the release of Pixar’s sequel Monsters University from Nov. 2, 2012 to June 21, 2013. As a result, Disney toon Reboot Ralph will now open Nov. 2, 2012 — Monsters’ old date — instead of March 12, 2013.

Within several hours, Paramount and DreamWorks Animation announced they were moving The Croods from March 1, 2013, to March 22, 2013.

Needless to say, both November and now the following June are going to be pretty big months for animation fans, especially families. Sadly, this does mean that fans of Billy Crystal and John Goodman’s characters from the original will have to wait that much longer.