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.

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.

I’d seen Finding Nemo only once before, when it was originally released, in the spring of 2003. Children were just a gleam in my eye, as they say, and at the time I enjoyed the film simply as a highly entertaining romp, with stunning visuals and a thoroughly engaging storyline. The film went on to win the Oscar for Best Animated Feature and was second in grosses only to The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. According to Wikipedia it’s also the best-selling DVD of all time and was the highest grossing G-rated film ever, until it was eclipsed by Toy Story 3, another Pixar triumph.

That’s a good place to start this review, because like Finding Nemo, the Toy Story films were also conceived, written and directed by Andrew Stanton, and like Toy Story 3, Finding Nemo is a story kids immediately adore, while being completely unaware of the incredibly poignancy and emotional power it has for the parents sitting next to them. But of course I didn’t understand that back then, being callow and young.

I enjoyed Marlin, Nemo’s father, as a fine comedic character, but my appreciation went only fin deep. I didn’t understand how amazingly inspired Albert Brooks is in the role, how his comedy—being from the very beginning of his career always driven by pathos and humiliation and self-awareness and self-delusion and conflicting impulses—encapsulates the complexity and fallibility in every moment of parenting.

John Lasseter once said that no sequel would ever be made at PIXAR with out the original director’s involvement or explicit permission. It is that mandate that has caused the biggest no brainer at PIXAR, Incredibles 2, to not happen… yet.

I say yet because it almost seems as if PIXAR is now dead set on returning to all of its former glorys. Deadline is reporting that Finding Nemo Director Andrew Stanton might be returning to the ocean for another Nemo based adventure:

[Deadline has] been hearing for months that he would come aboard to direct the sequel to Disney-based Pixar‘s Finding Nemo, with the idea that Disney would give him another shot behind the camera on a live-action film.

Finding Nemo is my favorite of the PIXAR catalog and often ranks among my top five favorite films of all time. So I like to think I can speak with some authority on the film, and a sequel is kind of baffling to me.

I have immense trust in Andrew Stanton, and I don’t hate the concept of a return to the sea, it is just hard for me to see the scenario for a return. Nemo ends in kind of a perfect place, and given the character growth in the film, another adventure to find Nemo would seem rather cheap.

It is said that Stanton has a concept that Disney loves, so perhaps he cracked that code. Or maybe he is just returning to the Nemo ‘universe’ and has a whole different type of story to tell. We can only wait and see.