'Monsters University' and 'World War Z' both score with audiences

One prediction held true this weekend. The total box office did top $200 million, but the distribution among the top three films was markedly different than many predictions. The troubled production World War Z was given a cautious weekend estimate of $40 million. Instead, the Brad Pitt-led zombie epic earned $66 million, the second-highest second-place opening ever. After shelving plans for a trilogy when the production ran into trouble, Paramount has already announced that it is working on the next chapter in the zombie epidemic story.

In first place, Monsters University continued Pixar's number-one opening record, debuting to $82 million. Audiences gave it an "A" rating, and it will likely play much stronger than last month's animated Epic. However, the silly sequel drew fewer non-family audiences than other Pixar movies: a little over a quarter of the audience didn't come as a family, compared to around a third for Brave. The movie will face tough competition in less than two weeks from Despicable Me 2, which has promised a larger dose of its adorable minions to viewers.

Man of Steel was crushed by the two new releases, particularly World War Z, which likely poached away some of its audience. The Superman relaunch dived 65% to $41 million. Still, that's not horrible for a movie that opened comfortably over $100 million, and holds the number-one spot (over WWZ) overseas.

In its second-week expansion, The Bling Ring narrowly missed placing in the top ten, cashing in with $2 million and an eleventh-place finish. Its $3,000 per-screen average was a grand off the average of fellow A24 release Spring Breakers, indicating that the movie will likely end up under that movie's $15 million cumulative to date, or that it's still in the process of building momentum. Much Ado About Nothing averaged $3,700 per screen for a total of $762,000. Its first major expansion, from 23 to 206 theatres, paid off, and the movie is outpacing other indies like The East, which earned half as much, $348,000, while playing in the same number of theatres.

This Friday will bring in two solid new releases. The action-packed White House Down will see the Presidential residence under siege, and Melissa McCarthy and Sandra Bullock will star in the buddy-cop comedy The Heat.