WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: Futuristic Commentary 'Elysium' Leads Overcrowded Weekend, Falls Short of 'District 9' Debut

Four new releases debuted in a heavily crowded frame this past weekend, but it was Neill Blomkamp's futuristic social commentary Elysium that emerged victorious with its $30 million opening. 

Elysium stars Matt Damon as a dying factory worker in the year 2154, who's only chance of survival is to find a way aboard a luxurious space colony where the wealthy are provided with the finest health care of the future. Elysium is supplied with a more prominent cast and larger budget than Blomkamp's 2009 directorial debut, District 9, but while Elysium secured the top spot at the box office this past weekend, it failed to match the director's previous opening.

The other three new releases, We're the Millers, Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters and Planes fought over the remaining spots in the Top 5, leaving last week's #1, 2 Guns barely hanging on to the final spot at the box office.

BLU-RAY TUESDAY: 'Oblivion' Blasts Home on Blu-ray with Metalpak and Other Retail Exclusives

Tom Cruise just keeps missing the elusive century mark with his three latest outings (his most recent $100 million hit being 2011's Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol), however audiences have the opportunity to check out his dystopian futuristic film Oblivion this week on Blu-ray. Also set to release this week are The Place Beyond the Pines, Mud, The Borgias: The Complete Third Season and several Disney classics. 

In Oblivion, Jack Harper (Cruise) is the one of the few drone repairman stationed on 2077 Earth alongside his communications partner and romantic interest, Victoria (Andrea Riseborough). However after a routine checkup turns south, Harper begins to realize that all that he's known may not exactly be the truth.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: 'Despicable Me 2' Conquers Fourth of July Box Office, Depp's 'Lone Ranger' Left for Dead

The lovable minions from the highly anticipated sequel, Despicable Me 2 lit up the Fourth of July holiday frame earning the top spot this weekend as well as becoming the most successful animated film for the first 5-days of its run.  Despicable Me 2 looks to join animated juggernauts such as Shrek 2, The Lion King and Finding Nemo by summer's end.

However, Johnny Depp's costly iteration of The Lone Ranger couldn't hold a candle to the success of Despicable Me 2, opening much lower than anticipated by many box-office analysts. With a weak $29 million 3-day opening, The Lone Ranger is pegged to be one of 2013's greatest financial failures.

The Heat, Monsters University and World War Z round out the weekend's Top 5 with all three films continuing their ascent towards their next milestones.

Disney's 'Lone Ranger' Loses Its Way in Bloated Western Adventure

Johnny Depp carries over his quirky Jack Sparrow routine as Tonto in The Lone Ranger.

Ever since Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl made boatloads of booty back in 2003, Disney has desperately gone back to the drawing board attempt to duplicate its financial and critical success. 2010's Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time failed to generate any sort of buzz as did last year's John Carter, but now with The Lone Ranger riding headfirst to the big screen, is there any reason to beat yet another dead horse?

Going through the motions to tell the origins of how and why district attorney John Reid (Armie Hammer) and Comanche outcast Tonto (Johnny Depp) crossed each other's paths shouldn't need to include a tonal seesaw shifting between silly lighthearted Jack Sparrow stunts one minute and the villains feasting on a victim's bleeding guts the next.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: 'Monsters University' Repeats, Taking 'The Heat' and 'White House Down' to School

Raunchy buddy cop films and Roland Emmerich's latest assault on the White House since his 1996 film, Independence Day failed to put a dent into Pixar's continuing success of the final box office frame in June.

Pixar prequel, Monsters University topped the charts for the second week in a row with a $46 million weekend, more than half of its $82 million opening haul. With Despicable Me 2 and The Lone Ranger set for Wednesday release this holiday weekend, the family competition grows stiff.

Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy's comedy The Heat opened in second with $40 million, coming up short of the top spot, but bolting past the frame's only other new wide release, White House Down. The Jamie Foxx action vehicle scored a decade low for Roland Emmerich outside of his 2011 film, Anonymous.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: 'Monsters University' and 'World War Z' Scare Superman Reboot Off Top Spot

The summer box office season might have started last month with $400 million blockbuster Iron Man 3, but with both Monsters University and World War Z opening north of $65 million, the first official weekend of summer 2013 ranks as the 8th largest weekend ever.

Pixar can rest easy now that their 14th feature, Monsters University cleared $80 million, a near-impossible feat that's only been broken once before by the animation studio. After a strong $30 million opening day, Monsters University already finds itself off to a more impressive start than Pixar's previous two films, Cars 2 and Brave.

Brad Pitt's zombie apocalyptic film, World War Z also opened higher than expected with $66 million. With Monsters University and World War Z taking the top two spots, last week's superhero champion, Man of Steel dropped to a third place finish.

Disney/Pixar's "Monsters University" Graduates Top of Its Animated Class

Mike Wasowski (Billy Crystal) prepares a year of scaring and partying at Monsters University.

With the exception of last summer's Brave, Pixar continues to capitalize on its most profitable franchises releasing sequel after sequel leaving the question whether or not the studio has much more originality left in the tank. But even if fresh new concepts aren't generating out of the reputable studio, Toy Story 3 and now Monsters University have undeniably proved that expanding upon beloved existing worlds reaps its own slew of successes.

Set many years before 2001's Monsters, Inc., Monsters University details the beginnings of  Mike (Billy Crystal) and Sulley's (John Goodman) relationship that started at the titular school where both strive to become professional scarers. The two enter campus completely different. Mike is overly ambitious, but isn't taken seriously for being a small green cyclops while Sulley rides the coattails of his family's legacy, under the impression that he doesn't need to put any effort in college to succeed.

BLU-RAY TUESDAY: Disney's 'Oz' Sees Green, 'Hansel & Gretel' Battle Fairy-Tale Witches on Blu-Ray

The first major blockbuster of 2013 makes its way on Blu-Ray this Tuesday, roughly three months after its theatrical release in early March. Oz the Great and Powerful, starring James Franco, Rachel Weisz and Mila Kunis, is set before the 1939 classic when Dorothy arrives in the world of wizards, witches and singing Munchkins exploring how the Wizard of Oz became the mysterious floating head ruling from the confines of Emerald City.

Oz the Great and Powerful is released in multiple formats on Blu-Ray including a Blu-Ray, DVD, Digital Copy combo pack, a Blu-Ray, Digital Copy combo pack and a Blu-Ray 3D, Digital Copy combo pack.

There's No Place Like "Oz," Even 75 Years Later

Oz (James Franco) finds himself in a magical world needing saved from the Wicked Witch.

No offense to Sam Raimi, but he's probably not one of the first directors that comes to mind who would attempt to reimagine the enchanting world of L. Frank Baum's Oz. Given his directorial track record of the Spider-Man trilogy, Army of Darkness and The Evil Dead, a land of munchkins, witches and wizards seems all too foreign for someone who made his mark producing cult-classic splatter-fests.

Oz the Great and Powerful reopens the doors to the whimsical parallel world made famous by Baum's series of novels and Victor Fleming's 1939 classic starring Judy Garland. But this trip misses a few of the key ingredients. No Dorothy. No Scarecrow. No Tin Man. No Cowardly Lion. In fact, the Wizard of Oz comes in the form of James Franco as a small-time magician from Kansas, continuously looking for opportunities to cheat and swindle the simple-minded.

Disney's "Wreck-It Ralph" Levels Up on Blu-Ray

Tired of being the bad guy, Ralph (John C. Reilly) tells other arcade baddies his concerns.

If you're one of the millions out there logged into XBOX Live or World of Warcraft hours and hours at a time, or perhaps spent your childhood battling side-scrolling adventures with Mario or Link, Disney's latest animated release, Wreck-It Ralph speaks to gamers regardless of age.

Wreck-It Ralph begins in the 8-bit world of Fix-It Felix Jr., reminiscent of a classic 1980s arcade game that borrows heavily on Mario and Donkey Kong. For 30 years, Wreck-It Ralph (John C. Reilly) has been programmed to be the bad guy, whose only job is to demolish a solitary penthouse before his cheery hammer-wielding adversary, Felix fixes the wreckage. For once, Ralph just wants to be adored as the good guy and decides to venture off to other games in the arcade to win a medal. After battling bugs in a sci-fi first-person shooter, Ralph lands himself in a candy-coated go-kart game where everything isn't as sweet as it seems.   

Pixar Returns Under the Sea for Another 3D Re-Release

You can't help but wonder why these sea turtles sound like surfer dudes.

Andrew Stanton is one of those few directors in recent cinema, who genuinely understands that animation is just not about the set the visuals bar and the abundance of Hollywood voice acting, but it's a medium of art that can bring generations together time and time again. Back in 2003, Disney and Pixar submerged audiences to a world of wonder and as enormous of a canvas as the ocean itself. Technically, it was the ocean itself. But if by chance you were one of the few to miss its original run nearly a decade ago, Disney is re-releasing Finding Nemo 

Finding Nemo starts off with an extremely dark opening for a G-rated film as two clownfish, Marlin (Albert Brooks) and Coral, are forced to defend their anemone home from a menacing barracuda. As a result, Coral is killed as are the majority of their eggs, leaving only Marlin and one egg, an unborn Nemo. The incident leaves Marlin as an overprotective single father. During his first day of school, Nemo (Alexander Gould) defies his high-strung father and ventures off with his classmates to a drop-off point, only to captured by an Australian diver. Frantic for his son's survival, Marlin teams with Dory (Ellen DeGeneres), a Blue Tang with memory issues to find his taken son back into theaters with a gouging 3D premium. 

'Avengers' is Marvel's Newest Definition of Super

Marvel's superhero "dream team" defend New York from the villainous forces of  Loki.

Very few films have been able to come close, let alone match the hype factor that’s been gradually brewing throughout the past four years for Marvel’s superhero dream team to assemble onscreen. Since 2008’s Iron Man, Marvel has systematically been laying their cards down one by one, revealing subtle clues about what Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury describes as the Avengers Initiative. Die-hard comic book fans know exactly what’s about to happen and if you’ve seen Iron Man or Thor or any of Marvel’s other recent superhero movies in the theaters and you’ve seen moviegoers glued to their seats during the credits, they’re just anxious for the next little piece of the greater picture.

In The Avengers, the world is threatened by the devious Loki (Tom Hiddleston), the exiled prince of Asgard who’s driven to redeem his defeat in last year’s Thor by conquering Earth once and for all. Loki isn’t alone in this conquest; this time he commands an army of Chitauri, a formidable alien force with its own agenda. Being that this is humanity’s largest threat to date, Fury assembles the Avengers composed of Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Captain America (Chris Evans), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and the Incredible Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) to defend Earth.

Timeless Disney Classic Returns in All Its Animated Glory

Disney's tale as old as time returns to big screen for the first time in nearly a decade. 

It should be no surprise to see the tale as old as time back on the big screen once more, particularly after the re-release of The Lion King 3D this past fall did more than exceed expectations and extended what was originally intended as a limited two-week engagement. With a Blu-Ray and Blu-Ray 3D releases on the shelf, Beauty and the Beast isn’t here to market these available options, but to give audiences the opportunity to see this classic on the big screen again or for some, the very first time. Disney is a business that constantly seeks to reach newer generations with their classics and re-releases are nothing new for the company. 

Beauty and the Beast is the timeless tale of Belle, an out-of-place village girl who wants so much more than what her little village has to offer. Under a series of circumstances, Belle finds herself the prisoner of the Beast, after taking her father’s place after he intruded upon his castle. What begins as an awkward living arrangement soon blossoms into one of the most touching romances in not just animation, but cinema as a whole.

It's Time to Welcome the Muppets Back with Open Arms

Kermit, Miss Piggy and the rest of the Muppets return to the big screen after a decade-plus hiatus.

How many times have modern directors attempted to take something so iconic from pop culture, redress it for fresh audiences and the result just falls flat? The last couple of years have unfortunately been the epitome of revitalizing the 80s. Smurfs, fail. G.I. Joe, fail. Conan the Barbarian, fail. But where many studios have failed, Disney will try to pick up the pieces with a seventh Muppets film. 

As the first Muppets film since 1999, The Muppets rejuvenates the magic of the original three films, getting away from the gimmicky installments of the 90s. It has been years since the Muppets got together and finally do so when persuaded by their biggest fan, Walter, who’s also a Muppet, to save their old studio from a greedy oil baron (Chris Cooper). Pooling together to manage what seems to be the impossible, the Muppets put on a telethon to buy the oil baron off.