The Two Top Ten Animated Features

The dominant animation studios ... still dominate.

... The biggest movie of the month was Madagascar 3, which earned $176.5 million during its first 23 days in theaters. On the first day of July, it eclipsed its predecessor's $180.01 million total, and it's on pace to easily pass the first Madagascar's $193.6 million total as well. With strong foreign numbers rolling in as well, this franchise is clearly still very healthy ...

Through nine days in theaters, Disney/Pixar's Brave grossed $121.4 million. That's right in between Up ($124 million) and WALL-E ($117.3 million), which shows just how consistent the Pixar brand is. The movie will cruise well past $200 million before the end of its run, making it the 10th Pixar movie to reach that milestone. ...

DreamWorks Animation often gets thought of as Pixar's less-creative, less successful sibling, even though DWA has released more product and has made more money.

I've long thought that Jeffrey K.'s plan (despite denials) was to sell the studio to a hungry entertainment conglomerate, but continue running it. Unfortunately, the U.S. and world economy went into the crapper, so that plan had to be scotched.

But Plan B hasn't worked out too badly: Turn out a long string of hit films, and make money that way.