Pixar’s Up easily floated away with the top spot at the box office this weekend, taking in an estimated $68.2 million.

That mark bests WALL-E’s take of $63 million from last year and locks it into third place for bext Pixar openings, behind just the ~$70 million openings of 2004’s The Incredibles and 2003’s Finding Nemo.

Trailing in second was last weekend’s number one, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, with $25.5 million. That tally puts the Ben Stiller family comedy over the $100 million mark, with its domestic total sitting at $105 million. Sam Raimi’s return to horror, Drag Me To Hell, pulled in a modest but respectable $16.6 million, good enough for 3rd place. The film didn’t have nearly the broad appeal of his Spider-Man movies, though his latest film seems to be universally more well-liked than his last outing with Spider-Man 3.

Terminator Salvation fell 62% to $16.1 million in 4th place, not a very good sign of longevity at the box office for the rebooted franchise. Its total currently sits at $90.7 million, and in an increasingly crowded summer market, it seems unlikely Salvation will do much better than T3’s $150 million. J.J. Abrams’s Star Trek, however, is still keeping its legs as it pulled in another $12.8 million to round out the top 5. It has breached the $200 million mark in its fourth weekend of release with a domestic total of $209.5 million.

Next week will be a battle of comedies, with three new wide releases. Universal is releasing its Will Ferrell-Danny McBride comedy remake of Land of the Lost, while Warner Bros.’s much-buzzed about The Hangover finally hits theaters. My Life In Ruins, the new romantic comedy from My Big Fat Greek Wedding star Nia Vardalos, also gets a modest wide release. I think the buzz and anticipation for The Hangover has been strong enough that it can overtake the big-budget guns of Land of the Lost, but you can never quite count out Will Ferrell. I’m gonna say that The Hangover narrowly edges Land of the Lost, with the smaller release of My Life In Ruins finishing up in third. The current record stands at 11 for 13.

Check out the top 12 below, or head on over to Box Office Mojo for the full weekend chart.

New releases highlighted in yellow

Ben Stiller flexed his family comedy muscle over the weekend, pulling in $53.5 million with his Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian to take the top spot at the box office.

The sequel to his successful Night at the Museum (which pulled in $250.9 million in domestic gross) beat the original’s first weekend haul of $30.4 million, but that was released during the winter holiday season, when movies typically have longer sustainability at the box office. In a crowded summer market, it is unlikely (but not unexpected) that Battle of the Smithsonian will reach the original’s total.

Terminator Salvation, the relaunch of the Terminator franchise whose last theatrical release was six years ago, also bowed strongly in second place with a $43 million weekend gross. Paired with its strong Thursday debut, Salvation’s four-day total sits at $56.4 million. Dance Flick, the last new wide opener, pulled in a not-too-shabby $11.1 million for fifth place. While not nearly as successful as the Wayans family’s other spoof movies, it still performed much better than last year’s Disaster Movie, whose domestic total barely crossed $14 million.

Star Trek continued its strong course, grossing $22 million for third place. Its number were hurt by Night at the Museum taking over most of its IMAX screens, which caused Trek’s IMAX numbers to fall over 90% from last weekend. Rounding out the top five in fourth place was Angels & Demons, which pulled in $21.4 million over the weekend. This is about on-par with the domestic performance of The Da Vinci Code, and Angels also pulled in a whopping $60.4 million internationally to take the top spot in foreign box office for the second week in a row.

Easy Virtue, the British comedy starring Jessica Biels and Colin Firth, opened strongly in the specialty market. It pulled in $116,000 across 10 venues, or a $11,600 per-theater average.

Next weekend’s new wide openers will be Sam Raimi’s return to horror in Drag Me To Hell, as well as Pixar’s Up (which has been getting rave reviews, e.g. “best Pixar movie ever,” from early screenings, by the way). Also opening will be Departures, the Japanese film that surprisingly took the Best Foreign Film award at last year’s Oscars, while The Brothers Bloom will be expanding. Pixar’s more or less a no-brainer here: Up finishes before Drag Me To Hell. My predictions record currently sits at 9 for 12 (damn you, Ben Stiller!).

Check out the top 12 below, or head on over to Box Office Mojo for the full weekend chart:

New releases highlighted in yellow

It’s hard to judge Terminator Salvation on its own merits, to not compare it to James Camerons’ now-canonical first two installments of the franchise he thought he had ended back in 1992. I enjoyed T3 despite its flaws, and was excited by the early footage for Terminator Salvation; but in reality, these are films that have no need to exist, films that seek to bring something new to the table when it’s already crowded by the mighty heft of The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day. This doesn’t excuse T3 and T4 from criticism, mind you, but they bear the uneviable burden of being scrutinized against Cameron’s initial efforts. And when they make unpopular decisions, it’s far too easy to damn them for destroying a franchise and to curse them for ruining a legacy when really, we’re just griping because they didn’t make the movie we wanted to see, the one we had imagined for ourselves after Judgment Day back in 1992. It’s hard to live up to our own imaginations, so let me judge this film based not on how it compares to the first two Terminator films, but on how it performed as its own movie.

Terminator Salvation is a good movie. It’s not great. But it’s good. McG and his crew have crafted a richly desolate post-apocalyptic landscape and filled it with a believable imagining of what a human resistance against a near-absolute machine takeover would look like. The action set pieces are choreographed beautifully and the film has plenty of thrills for summer moviegoing audiences.

Our entry point into this film is Marcus Wright, played superbly by Sam Worthington, a natural star and an actor who’s sure to become a household name by this time next year. He gives us a sympathetic antihero to root for, an outsider to the film’s world, serving the same role Arnold did in T2 and, to a lesser extent, T3. The opening scene with him is a little flat, a little cheesy, but Worthington’s performance is convincing enough to carry us through it. He’s by far the most interesting character of the film, and this in turn sows a seed that proves to be one of the two main problems of the film. But more on that later.

Most of the other faces we meet are familiar, characters we’ve been introduced to before — Kate Connor, nee Brewster, wife to John Connor (played by an criminally underused Bryce Dallas Howard); Kyle Reese, future father of John Connor (played wonderfully by Anton Yelchin — I’m hoping his role is much expanded in T5); and of course John Connor himself. This movie really shot to the top of peoples’ radars when it was announced that Christian Bale had been cast as Connor, and so it’s surprising that Bale is in fact one of the weaker aspects of the film. It’s not that he gives a bad performance — his intensity, his despair, the weight of his burden and how haunted he is are all strongly conveyed. But it’s all so one-note. We don’t get very many sides of John Connor and that is one of the more disappointing elements of the film, and a product of the film’s second and biggest flaw — the lack of layers, the lack of drama.

The action, the battles, the effects work are all dazzling. But a lot of the drama is poorly crafted. For example, the second scene of the film has us following a Resistance strike force attacking a SkyNet base, but we’re dropped into the middle of the action without any setup or sense of the stakes involved. Instead, the film relies too heavily on the work done by the previous films, revealing John Connor in a kind of hero’s pose. We get the sense that this is supposed to be a grand moment, but a lot of that sentiment is lost because we’re not invested in this incarnation of Connor yet. That is the recurring problem of the film — it builds enough on the story and the characters so audiences know they’re supposed to care, but that attachment is entirely manufactured, based entirely on the fraudulent and unearned notion that if these characters do not succeed, the world — and indeed the future — is over. In turn, the emotional beats of the film suffer and fall just below the bounds of authenticity. We worry about the fate of the characters, but only kind of half-heartedly from a sense of obligation.

Which leads us back to our first problem. Marcus is a great character. Connor, though written somewhat poorly, is still also a great character. The movie, however, can’t decide which one of them is the main character. We struggle to fully invest in either of them because we don’t get to spend enough time with them. We’re never fully immersed in their struggle, always having to jump back from one to the other, disrupting the flow of the film and the development of each character. This seems to go along with reports that Marcus was originally intended as the main protagonist, but that Connor’s role was re-written and expanded once Bale signed on. I can’t blame everything on this identity crisis of sorts, but it’s a major problem of the film, and one I wish they could have sorted out during pre-production.

Still, the real problem is McG’s failure to convincingly build tension and develop some good old fashioned drama. I know I’m judging this film on its own merits, but that’s what Cameron got right and what McG didn’t — Cameron made us truly care about the characters, McG treats them more as emoting puppets. There’s a sense of impatience to the dramatic scenes, a hurried intensity that leaves them feeling rushed and empty. But despite being denied a true connection to the lead characters, the film is still just entertaining enough, just compelling enough, just richly-realized enough to keep us entertained and engaged. Its flaws, though problematic, aren’t enough to prevent the film from being good. It just came so close to being so much more that it’s frustrating it didn’t reach the apex of its potential. For now, we’ll have to be satisfied with T4, a perfectly acceptable — if somewhat unfulfilling — film.

Angels & Demons performed well at the box office this weekend, taking in $48 million to win the top spot, but couldn’t quite match the success of its predecessor.

Its prequel, The Da Vinci Code, ended up grossing $217.5 million at the domestic box office after a $77.1 million opening weekend. Overseas, however, it pulled in a massive $540.7 million, and Angels & Demons looks to continue that domestic-foreign box office ratio with its $104.3 million foreign haul this weekend.

Trailing just behind the Tom Hanks thriller was a surging Star Trek, which pulled in $43 million and maintained its steady course on the strength of critical and audience reception. Its total now stands at $147.6 million after 10 days, which is already the best performing movie of the franchise.

Rian Johnson’s The Brothers Bloom opened in limited release, taking in $82,000 across 4 theaters in LA and NY, or a stellar $20,500 per-theater average. However, the Steve Zahn-Jennifer Aniston dramedy Management, which opened in 212 theaters, was only able to pull in $378,000, or a $1,783 per-theater average.

Next week, the first big showdown of summer blockbusters takes place over Memorial Day weekend. Terminator Salvation will go head-to-head with Night at the Musuem: Battle at the Smithsonian, with comedy-spoof Dance Flick picking up the pieces. Steven Soderbergh’s The Girlfriend Experience starring adult video star Sasha Grey also opens in limited release across 30 screens. Between the trepid anticipation for another Terminator movie and the kitsch-y, kid-friendly vibe of Night at the Museum, it’s going to be a tricky weekend to predict. I’m gonna say the killer robots just edge out the family-friendly comedy on this one, and it’ll finish Terminator, Night at the Museum, and then Dance Flick.

Check out the top 12 below, or head over to Box Office Mojo for the full weekend chart:

New releases highlighted in yellow

Terminator Salvation is still a couple of weeks away from release, but with a fifth Terminator film being greenlit way back in December, director McG is already thinking about where we’ll be going next. He has previously hinted that the ending to Salvation will not be a tidy one, and may in fact divide fans, but now McG is giving us our first clues of where that ending will lead us as we segue into the next movie. The director caught up with Film Journal, and here’s what he had to say:

I strongly suspect the next movie is going to take place in a [pre-Judgment Day] 2011,” McG reveals. “John Connor is going to travel back in time and he’s going to have to galvanize the militaries of the world for an impending Skynet invasion. They’ve figured out time travel to the degree where they can send more than one naked entity. So you’re going to have hunter killers and transports and harvesters and everything arriving in our time and Connor fighting back with conventional military warfare, which I think is going to be fucking awesome. I also think he’s going to meet a scientist that’s going to look a lot like present-day Robert Patrick [who famously played the T-1000 in Terminator 2], talking about stem-cell research and how we can all live as idealized, younger versions of ourselves.

It looks like McG has some pretty cohesive ideas mapped out for this planned trilogy. There’s going to be a minefield of continuity issues he’ll have to look out for as he delves back into time travel, though, so he better have everything planned out to a tee. Hopefully Salvation will be as epic as it’s looked thus far and we can all look forward to McG’s next Terminator film, because boy would it be awkward for all parties involved if Salvation turns out to be a shitshow. I suspect it won’t though, so despite how close the original Terminator films are to my heart, I’m looking forward to how this new era of the universe develops.

Head on over to Film Journal for the rest of the interview, which actually has a lot more info on the upcoming flick, such as how it came to be, how McG approached its creation, and what we can expect when it hits theaters on May 21st.

“I have seen the [Terminator] movie, but I have not seen it as a finished product yet. I have not seen it yet with the Terminator special effects and some of the sound and the music is not in there yet and so on. So I really cannot comment on it, what the movie will be like as a finished product. There’s a rule that you never talk about a movie unless you have seen the finished product. But you know as I said to the director when they began that I wish them the best of luck, that I’m happy that they move forward with the franchise, I am very happy with where I am with my profession as the governor and they should try to find a way of doing a story that does not include me at all, not even one single shot in it. I don’t believe in that. To kind of have them go out and promote the movie and say you know Arnold is in the movie and everyone thinks that I’m the Terminator and in fact you only see one second of me in there and so I don’t think thats the right thing to do. And you know that’s the danger of that, and that’s why I feel reluctant to be part of the movie in the first place.”

Last we heard, Schwarzenegger was only going to be included in the movie by using CG to reproduce his likeness. However, MTV Movies Blog is now reporting that the Governator WILL in fact have a small cameo in Terminator Salvation – at least according to co-star Terry Crews, who has roles in both Terminator and The Expendables. Check out the following bit from the MTV article:

In addition to the “Expendables” cameo, Crews told us that Schwarzenegger will indeed be doing a cameo in “Terminator Salvation.” “That’s it,” he said. “And so am I.”

The article itself is a bit sketchy in the details, and I get the vibe that MTV couldn’t get the exact quote they wanted from Crews. It definitely seems like Crews is reluctant to confirm anything, and it wouldn’t surprise me if MTV was just digging a little too hard for a scoop and this all comes back in a flurry of denials later on.

That said, it would be really sweet if Arnold could find a little time to make a small appearance in Terminator Salvation, as I know that would be the icing on the cake for a lot of fans. We’ll let you know how this all turns out in the end (of you could just wait til May 21st when the movie opens, and find out for yourself).

Head on over to IGN for a bigger version. For those keeping count, only two more months until Terminator Salvation hits theaters!

Hamilton had said she was waiting to read the script before making a decision, and it looks like she liked what she read. Allegedly, she not only did the voice work, but it’s already been cut into the opening of the movie. This is fantastic news for Terminator fans, as hearing Hamilton’s voice narrating the opening sequence could serve as a wonderful bridge from the last Terminator film she and Cameron had a hand in (in which her voice over closed out the movie).

Lots of buzzworthy activity this week, particularly on the trailer front. There were a couple of noteworthy previews that didn’t make the cut for the column this week, so be sure to click on our Trailers tab to check them out. Sneaking into the trailer party were a couple of exciting casting announcements and a Company of Thieves, too. It all happened here at c, vt as we take a look back at the week with the third installment of WIR!

10. New Wolverine Trailer And Character Pics - The final trailer for X-Men Origins: Wolverine shows off action and mutants, but frankly, we’ve seen enough of the footage to just want to see the damn movie already.

9. The Hangover Trailer Is Kinda Awesome – Todd Phillips (Old School) looks like he may be returning to form with this early teaser for The Hangover. It’s got babies and Mike Tyson–what more could you ask for?

8. Sucker Punch Lining Up A Helluva Cast! – Watchmen ate up most of the headlines this week, but it’s Zack Snyder’s next film, Sucker Punch, that really grabbed our attention with an ensemble cast we’re kinda sorta in love with.

7. Jarmusch And Doyle Test The Limits of Control In Trailer - Jim Jarmusch returns with a brooding trailer that we can’t quite figure out, but are excited about nonetheless.

6. certified, verytasty: Rushmore Inspired COMPANY OF THIEVES Music Video – It’s a real nifty music video, and it certainly landed Company of Thieves’ excellent album, Ordinary Riches, a premier spot on our iTunes playlist. Check it out here!

5. DiCaprio Joins Nolan For Inception! – The biggest casting news of the week (month? year?) was word that Leonardo DiCaprio had signed on for Chrisopther Nolan’s mysterious next (non-Batman) project, Inception. Still no plot details, but with Leo and Nolan involved, does it really matter?

4. Public Enemies Goes Public With Poster And Trailer Sneak Peek – Really, picking a pecking order for these next four trailers that top the list was a crapshoot. All four of them were awesome looks at new movies and could’ve made the cut in any order. Let’s kick things off with our first look at Michael Mann’s highly-anticipated Johnny Depp-Christian Bale 1920’s team-up, Public Enemies.

3. New Terminator Salvation Trailer! – Now get your double dose of Christian Bale with the amazing new trailer for Teriminator Salvation, in which the role of Sam Worthington’s Marcus Wright character gets a little bit clearer. Oh yeah, and robots blow stuff up. To great effect.

2. Awesome Adventuring In New Up Trailer! – Let’s lighten up the mood now with someting a little more family-friendly. We get our first in depth look at the world of Pete Doctor’s Up, and we’re even more smitten than we were before. Meet Dug the talking Dog and all sorts of other fantastic things. If there was any doubt before, surely it’s now a certainty that Disney and Pixar have another hit on their hands.

1. New Star Trek Trailer Fires Everything! – We’re not Trekkies here at c, vt, and that’s exactly why this trailer made the top of the list. Sure, like any movie fan, we were interested in J. J. Abrams’ Star Trek, but only in an almost obligatory fashion. We knew the importance of the franchise and the fact that it looked like a big, fun summer blockbuster, so we figured, sure, we want to see it. Well, with this new trailer, we’re downright amped to see this movie now. Consider us among the converted!

Yahoo! Movies has the new sicktastic trailer for Terminator Salvation! Check it out above, or in full HD glory over at Y! Movies. They seem to be really pushing Sam Worthington’s Marcus Wright character now, giving an appropriate matching bookend to how news on this movie’s plot has hit the internet since we first learned of it way back when. Anybody else excited for Memorial Day?

First, a couple new posters (click for larger versions):

So apparently Sam Worthington has moved up to second billing. Good for him. Also, Yahoo has a bunch of stills up, a few of which are posted below, but the rest you can catch here:

And finally, ET will be premiering the Terminator Salvation trailer that will be rolling out in front of Watchmen, but you can catch a sneak peek of it below. There’s some new footage, including a T-800 whooping butt, John Connor smooching Kate, and even a quick PG cut of what might be Moon Bloodgood’s topless rain scene that was at the center of McG’s WonderCon revelation regarding his on-going battle with the studio to keep the movie R-rated [via /film]:

Personally, I’m reaching my breaking point with Terminator Salvation footage. Pretty soon, I’m going to shut down from viewing all this marketing material, lest it all grow stale by the time the movie actually comes out on May 21, 2009.

A lot of stuff happens each week. I think we average something like 45 to 55 stories a week (we clocked in at 42 this week, an admittedly slow one for us), and that can get messy for the folks who don’t have time to check in on us every day. Hence, we’re now introducing Week-In-Review, a weekly column that’ll take the 10 biggest or most interesting stories from the past week and organize them into one convenient article for you. Isn’t that handy?

Let’s kick off our very first edition!

10. Linda Hamilton Speaks Up On In Terminator Salvation – The former Mrs. Cameron confirms that she’s indeed in negotiations to reprise her role in voiceover form for Terminator Salvation.

9. Mickey Rourke Out Of Iron Man 2? – In the continuing saga of Marvel’s miserly madness, Mickey Rourke announced that he could very well be uninvolved in Iron Man 2 (though more recent reports now suggest they’re still working on a deal).

8. certified, verytasty: Kanye West’s “Welcome To Heartbreak” – The inaugural edition of our certified, verytasty column (in which we highlight cool shit that isn’t necessarily movie-related), we take a look at Kanye West’s tricked-out new music video.

7. Inglourious Basterds International One-Sheets Surface – Three teaser posters for Quentin Tarantino’s Nazi-slaying epic are released to the interwebs.

6. Wrap Your Arms Around The Trailer For Pedro Almodovar’s Broken Embraces! – A brief but inviting look at the next film of one of Spain’s premiere directors.

5. Arnold Schwarzenegger Is Expendable! – The Governator puts his name down (and then sort of takes it back) to join Sylvester Stallone’s The Expendables.

4. X-Men Origins: Wolverine Ad Campaign – Fox launches three one-minute ads across three nights of television to promote Wolverine. Some questions about how they’re treating the characters aside, this movie certainly looks pretty badass. Can it deliver?

3. Funny People Trailer Debuts! – Comic genius Judd Apatow returns to the director’s chair with Funny People, starring Adam Sandler and Seth Rogen.

2. HD Transformers 2 Trailer Hits! – The full-length trailer for Michael Bay’s Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen debuts online. Geeks simultaneously orgasm everywhere.

1. A Farewell To Late Night With Conan O’Brien – A cinema, verytasty salute to our favorite late night talk show host, and a look back at his illustrious (and hilarious) career.

See you next week!

McG had hinted that one option for Hamilton’s return would be for her to do the opening voiceover for the film, and it looks like that’s the route they went. I’m all for her reprising her iconic turn as Connor, and I’ll bet fans of the series will get a pretty big kick out of it, too. How do you guys feel about it?

Time to kick start the viral ad campaign for Terminator Salvation. The website for Skynet Research has launched, and they want your robot designs! Submit robot designs in a variety of formats to get them featured on the website, or even petition to receive an exclusive Enhancement Module, Module 101. As for what it does (or if they’ll really send you one), we have no idea. But you can also check out some of the other features of the site, including “Product” pages that give us an idea of the evolution of the robots that will be appearing in Terminator Salvation, and a creepy lady narrating various pieces of company jibber-jabber.

Check it out and let us know what you think.