Steve's Other Job: Monsters, Inc. #1 Film This Weekend, Shatters Records

This weekend was a big weekend for Apple CEO Steve Jobs, but not because of the iPod, iTunes 2, or the trouble with the iTunes 2 Mac OS X installer. Instead, it was his other job as head of Pixar that gathered headlines. Pixaris Monsters, Inc. opened up on Friday and broke a few records in the process. The movie was the #1 movie for the weekend, outpacing itis nearest competitor more than 3:1 in box office receipts. From an E! Online article:

Monsters, Inc. scared up a giant $63.48 million at the box office, according to weekend estimates.

This latest Disney-Pixar computer-generated kiddie flick beat out their Toy Story 2is 1999 opening weekend ($57.3 million) as the top itoon opening of all time.

The G-rated movie, which stars the voices of John Goodman as a big blue hairy galoot and Billy Crystal as his nifty eyeball of a sidekick, set several other records. It was the best ever November opener and the best ever Disney opener, besting the heavily hyped Pearl Harboris $59 million first three days in May. It was also the fourth most successful debut of this year and the sixth of all time.

Averaging $19,612 at 3,237 screens, Monsters, Inc. also helped boost the overall weekend box office a mammoth 88.6 percent from last weekend.

The movie was helped out by the addition of the Star Wars Episode II trailer, the first such trailer, which is showing exclusively before Monsters, Inc. That helped draw Star Wars fans in addition to fans of Pixaris animation to the theatres. There is additional information on this weekendis box office results in the full E! Online article.