Beasts continued to stomp throughout the nation's movie theaters this past weekend. Once again, Monsters University from Disney (DIS -0.45%) unit Pixar was the top-grossing film, taking in a little more than $46 million according to data compiled by Box Office Mojo. Now in its second week of release, the film (a prequel to Pixar's 2001 hit Monsters) has reaped roughly $171 million to date.
No. 2 for the weekend was a fresh release, the odd couple police comedy The Heat. It raked in an estimated $40 million, which is also the best opening for a film featuring co-star Sandra Bullock. The movie is distributed by 21st Century Fox (Nasdaq: FOX) (Nasdaq: FOXA) subsidiary Twentieth Century Fox.
Third place belonged to big-budget zombie slaughter-fest World War Z. The film continued to kill in its second weekend in theaters, grossing just under $30 million. Thus far, it has sold approximately $124 million in tickets. It's distributed by Viacom's (NASDAQ: VIA) Paramount.
A disappointing performer was White House Down, the second of two movies released this year to feature the title building in peril. It debuted to almost $26 million in gross receipts over the weekend, which fell short of the $30 million-plus opening performance of the similarly themed Olympus Has Fallen released in March. Of the two, White House Down has the higher production budget by far. It cost roughly $150 million to make, in contrast to its rival's $70 million.
White House Down is distributed by Sony (SONY 0.37%).
