Weekend Box Office: 'Brave' Keeps Pixar On Top, 'Lincoln' Falls Flat

It was a tale of two box offices this weekend, as one of the three major openers found success while the other two languished. The big winner was "Brave," which opened to a healthy $66.7 million, beating the opening of "Madagascar 3" a couple of weeks ago. That gives "Brave" the #1 spot for the weekend, making it the 13th straight #1 opener for Pixar.

The success of "Brave" is heartening, considering it's a movie with a female protagonist that doesn't use a love triangle (looking at you, "Hunger Games" and "Twilight") or any romantic involvement at all, really, to push the story forward. There are very few movies that can say the same.

In second place was the other big animated flick, "Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted." The Dreamworks film pulled in another $20.2 million for a cumulative total of $157.5 million over three weekends, putting it well on its way to $200 million domestic.

"Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" managed only $16.5 million over the weekend, as projections for the movie kept getting more and more conservative due to a lack of audience interest and poor reviews. Turnout got worse over the weekend, most likely from bad word of mouth, indicationg that "AL:VH" will not make up for the poor opening with a long run in theaters.

As Nikki Finke of Deadline notes, there is a waning interest in original live-action movies, even big actioners like "AL:VH," which only pushes studios to pursue more reboots and sequels. The audience is certainly to blame, as Finke notes (and evidenced by the poor earnings of the delightful "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World"), but the studios are, too: it's not as though "AL:VH" is a good movie. If content could lean more toward the quality of "Inception," audiences would likely react accordingly.

Or, studios could go the route of "Prometheus," creating semi-prequels that almost act as original movies. "Prometheus came in fourth place over the weekend with $10 million, giving it a cume of $108.5 million over the past three weekends.

Fifth place went to "Snow White and the Huntsman" ($8 million, $137 million cume), meaning that the weekends third big opener, "Seeking a Friend for the End of the World," didn't make the top five. In fact, "Seeking" flopped with a measly $3.8 million, landing it in 10th place for the weekend. Reviews weren't great for "Seeking" either, despite a solid cast.

Other box office news includes "The Avengers," which has a domestic cume of just over $598 million and should pass the $600 million mark in the next few days.

1. "Brave" - $66.7 million
2. "Madagascar 3" - $20.2 million ($157.5M)
3. "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" - $16.5 million
4. "Prometheus" - $10 million ($108.5M)
5. "Snow White and the Huntsman" - $8 million ($137M)