'Up' Soars to the Box Office's Top

Pixar have once again dominated the North American box office, placing their latest animation "Up" at the top slot of the revenue chart. With opening bow being estimated at around $68.2 million, the family adventure film became the tenth Pixar movie to land atop the chart and maintained the studio's perfect box-office track record, scoring ten for ten.

Among Pixar movies, this Pete Docter-directed animation is the studio's third highest debut behind "Finding Nemo" and "The Incredibles", but still ahead of "Wall-E" which opened to $63.1 million. If the ticket price inflation is taken into consideration, however, "Up" slid to fifth place since "Toy Story 2" and "Monsters, Inc." would rate significantly higher.

As for the film's success nabbing the #1 slot despite concern over its geriatric action hero, Mark Zoradi, the president of the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, said, "An elderly gentleman and a young boy traveling off to South America; it's not your typical animated story and not necessarily the easiest story to convey." He added, "That's why I give a lot of credit to the marketing team for taking a movie that wasn't easy to convey to the public and opening it to the highest levels of animation that we've ever done for an original story."

Pushed to the runner-up position by "Up" was "Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian". Having won the Memorial Day weekend with $70 million, the Ben Stiller's comedy dropped around 52.9% in ticket sales and scored approximately $25.5 million in its second week. Still, the sequel to "Night at the Museum" has managed to collect around $105.3 million so far.

Third place belonged to another newcomer, "Drag Me to Hell". The movie that marked director Sam Raimi's return to the horror genre has drawn in an estimated $16.6 million. Hot on "Drag Me" tail was "Terminator Salvation". In its second week in theaters, the McG's action thriller only managed to add around $16.1 million to the total of about $90.7 million. Meanwhile, "Star Trek" landed fifth on the chart with an estimated $12.8 million.

Top Ten Movies at Weekend Box Office for May 29 - 31:

1. "Up" - $68.2 million
2. "Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian" - $25.5 million
3. "Drag Me to Hell" - $16.6 million
4. "Terminator Salvation" - $16.1 million
5. "Star Trek" - $12.8 million
6. "Angels & Demons" - $11.2 million
7. "Dance Flick" - $4.9 million
8. "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" - $3.9 million
9. "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past" - $1.9 million
10. "Obsessed" - $0.7 million