Weekend Preview: The Scare Games

This weekend's Scare Games pits the prequel to a beloved Pixar film against Brad Pitt's adaptation of the seminal work on fake zombie apocalypse history. Caught in the middle (again) is crime comedy The Bling Ring which expands nationwide this weekend.

Mike and Sully shouldn't have a very hard time outrunning some zombies on their way to the top of the box office. Twelve years ago this adorable pair of monsters scored an opening weekend of $62 million, squashing John Travolta and Jason Statham. They should be at least be able to recreate that success against Brad Pitt, though they might have a hard time reaching $70 million if audiences agree with the critics who are saying the film is more like Cars 2 than Toy Story 2. Since Monsters Inc.'s release, all but two of Pixar's nine releases have opened between $60 and $70 million. (Ratatouille opened to $47 million, Toy Story 3 opened to $110 million.) There may come a time when Pixar breaks out of that pattern, but Monsters University won't be the film to get them through the glass ceiling.

It really makes me sad to concede that World War Z isn't going to do as well at the box office as I would like it to. Along with the issues I mentioned in my June preview, the main reason I don't think it will do well this weekend is one that plagues many films: it can't decide who its main audience is. It looses hardcore horror fans by skipping the usual zombie gore in order to fit in a PG13 rating, but it won't be stealing many families from Pixar. Critics complain about it being too episodic, but Max Brooks fans will be disappointed by the total lack of faithfulness to the source material. Pitt's chances of reaching $50 million this weekend are pretty slim, but hey, so is surviving the zombie apocalypse and we know he was able to do that. So anything's possible.

Last weekend The Bling Ring stole $214,395 from five theaters. By Thursday it will pass $300,000 which should be a good launching pad for its nationwide expansion into around 650 theaters. It might have a shot at reaching $2 million, but $1 million seems like a safer guess at the moment.

Do you plan to spend the weekend pledging Oozma Kappa, or are you packing your survival kit and sharpening your lobo?

Tune in next week to see which is more laughable: Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy as cops in The Heat or Roland Emmerich's latest plot to destroy the White House in White House Down.