For those who overlooked the record-breaking success of The Hunger Games one year ago, it was a great weekend at the US box office. Two of the three new releases exceeded expectations, with Olympus Has Fallen nearly doubling studio projections. Only the Tina Fey comedy Admission stumbled – barely topping what Spring Breakers brought in from half as many locations.

Although the top ten films combined won’t match the debut of last year’s The Hunger Games, overall it looks like a good weekend at the domestic box office. Things look especially promising for DreamWorks Animation’s The Croods, which is on track for the second-highest debut of 2013 with over $40 million. In its first day in 4,046 locations, The Croods earned an estimated $11.6 million: just under the opening of DWA’s How to Train Your Dragon in March of 2010. In second place, FilmDistrict’s Olympus Has Fallen also looks strong. The R-rated thriller exceeded expectations on Friday with an estimated take of $10 million from 3,098 locations, and is now on track to top $25 million through Sunday. After setting records in just three theatres last weekend, Spring Breakers expanded into 1,104 venues yesterday and earned an estimated $2.1 million for fifth place. The only new release headed for trouble, in fact, is Admission. The comedy opened in sixth place and will fall short of $7 million from its 2,160 dates this weekend. We’ll have full details tomorrow.

Opening this weekend is director Antoine Fuqua’s White House actioner Olympus Has Fallen.  The film stars Gerard Butler as a disgraced Secret Service agent called back to duty when terrorists take over the White House and capture the President (Aaron Eckhart).  The film also stars Morgan Freeman, Angela Bassett, Ashley Judd, Melissa Leo, Robert Forster, Dylan McDermott, Radha Mitchell, Cole Hauser, and Rick Yune.  If you’ve been waiting for Butler to return to action, you’re going to be very happy watching Olympus Has Fallen.  Not only is the film a hard R for graphic violence, it features Butler kicking ass in some great action set pieces.  Watch some clips here.

A few days ago I landed an exclusive interview with Butler here in Los Angeles.   During our wide-ranging conversation, we talked about making Olympus Has Fallen, what it means to him, the great supporting cast, why he took a break from action films, the byproduct of being a celebrity, future projects, and more.  In addition, he also talked about How to Train Your Dragon 2, what it’s about, having a script this time, recording his dialogue, redoing about 70% of the first film after seeing the finished film, and a lot more.  Hit the jump to either read or listen to the interview.

With only days remaining before its much-anticipated return to Middle Earth, the box office was a relatively quiet place. Once again, holdovers ruled and grosses were small. In fact, the only real surprise was which of the week’s seasoned veterans came out on top. That would be Skyfall: the James Bond blockbuster that last held the top spot four weeks ago.

With Rise of the Guardians opening this week, I recently got to see the finished film at DreamWorks Animation and it’s really well done.  Not only is the animation great to look at, it’s got a strong story that’s character driven and it doesn’t rely on stupid jokes.  In addition, unlike most superhero films that spend half the time introducing characters by explaining their origin and showing off their powers, what’s fantastic about Rise of the Guardians is we join almost everyone in the middle of the story.  If you’re not familiar with the story, it  revolves around the rebellious Jack Frost (Chris Pine) teaming up with other mythical figures North aka Santa Claus (Alec Baldwin), E. Aster Bunnyman aka Easter Bunny (Hugh Jackman), Tooth aka The Tooth Fairy (Isla Fisher), and the Sandman to battle the evil Pitch (Jude Law).  Here’s my video blog review and all our previous coverage.

To help promote the film, last week I got on the phone with Rise of the Guardians director Peter Ramsey.  We talked about how they didn’t tell a typical origin story, the tone, how many times he re-storyboard the film and whether there were any dramatic changes along the way, the test screening process, collaborating with Roger Deakins, other DreamWorks Animation projects like How to Train Your Dragon 2, Kung Fu Panda 3, Trolls (which he said is “kind of partially based on a Terry Pratchett novel”) and more.  In addition, Ramsey got his start as a storyboard artist working for David Fincher on Fight Club and Steven Spielberg on A.I., so we talked about those projects and a few others.  Hit the jump for what he had to say.

We’re happy to bring you the first clip from DreamWorks new animated series, DreamWorks Dragons: Riders of Berk.  Based on the Academy Award-nominated film,  the series follows the continuing adventures of Hiccup and his faithful dragon, Toothless, along with their human and dragon friends alike as they soar over the Viking island of Berk.  The series features the returning vocal talents of Jay Baruchel, America Ferrera, Christopher Mintz-Plasse and T.J. Miller, as well as some veteran newcomers, such as Tim Conway and Mark Hamill.  The sequel to How to Train Your Dragon is set to debut in theaters on June 20th, 2014, but the series airs on Cartoon Network starting Tuesday, September 4th.  Hit the jump to see the clip and view the full press release.

Animated television adapted from theatrical fare doesn’t exactly have the best reputation. While the films might be worthy, the weekly adventures most often stray from the mood, style and artistic polish of their big screen brethren.  For every one The Real Ghostbusters, you get three Barnyard’s.  Dreamworks Animation and Cartoon Network aim to, if you will excuse the pun, tip the scales with their new series Dragons: Riders of Berk, a weekly extension of the popular How to Train Your Dragon franchise.  Earlier today, the creators premiered the first footage from the toon and described their ambitions for the project to a packed hall in Comic-Con room 6A.

Hit the jump for the details.

In anticipation of their 20th birthday celebration later this year, Cartoon Network is starting the party in San Diego this July at Comic-Con 2012.  Their special guests will include panels for Regular Show, Adventure Time, Star Wars: Clone Wars and the animated series based on DreamWorks Animation’s How to Train Your Dragon titled, Dragons: Riders of Berk. For those of you who aren’t able to attend the con, Cartoon Network will also be hosting the “Big Fan Weekend” on July 14th and 15th where they will show first looks and sneak peeks at upcoming shows.  There are plenty more shows where that came from, so be sure to hit the jump to check out who else will be gracing the halls of the San Diego Convention Center this July 12th through 15th. 

We all know him as the lovable bastard on Game of Thrones (who should have taken a roll in the snow with Ygritte (Rose Leslie)), but Kit Harington may soon lend his voice to a more villainous character.  Harington is up for a role in DreamWorks Animation’s How to Train Your Dragon 2.  The sequel to the 2010 hit features the return of Jay Baruchel, Gerard Butler, America Ferrera, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Kristen Wiig, Craig Ferguson, T.J. Miller, Jonah Hill and more in the vocal cast, in addition to the fine assortment of scaly beasts on screen.  Hit the jump for more on this potential casting addition.

Inspired by the book Goon: The True Story of an Unlikely Journey Into a Minor Hockey League, the hockey comedy Goon follows Doug Glatt (Seann William Scott), a bouncer at a local bar who ends up in a bloody fist fight that catches the eye of the Halifax Highlanders. Hampered by his lack of hockey playing ability, Doug joins the minor league team at the encouragement of his hockey-obsessed best friend (Jay Baruchel) and quickly becomes its mammoth-sized star.

At the film’s press day, actor Seann William Scott talked about being new to the game of hockey, how lucky they were not to get hurt with more than a few bruises, playing the earnest guy and the training he had to go through to bulk up, while producer/writer/actor/lifelong hockey fan Jay Baruchel talked about how terrible he is at hockey even though he’s such a big fan of the sport, getting to meet the real guy that the film was inspired by, the influence of Slap Shot, starting Seth Rogen’s feature directorial debut, The Apocalypse, at the end of April, and voicing Hiccup for both How to Train Your Dragon 2 and the Cartoon Network TV series. Check out what they had to say after the jump:

At today’s press day for the hockey comedy Goon, currently available in VOD and arriving in theaters on March 30^th, Collider was able to talk to the film’s producer/co-writer/actor Jay Baruchel after the roundtables and get quick updates on Jay and Seth vs. the Apocalypse, and the How to Train Your Dragon sequel and Cartoon Network animated series. For his responses about each, check out what he had to say after the jump.

DreamWorks Animation’s How to Train Your Dragon was one of my favorite films of 2010, and now the studio is set to unveil a television series based on the film called Dragons. The show has been in the works for a while now, but it’s finally set to air this fall on Cartoon Network and the first trailers for Dragons have gone online. The trailers are actually interspersed with a bit of footage from the movie, but the TV scenes are pretty evident when they pop up (ie. TV animation ≠ film animation). Executive producer Tim Johnson previously talked a bit about their direction for the show early last year:

“We’re actually going a little darker, a little more dramatic, much like the film.  The goal was not to change it or lighten it for a TV series.  The goal is to stay true to it in a TV series and that was actually fairly changing.”

The trailers don’t exactly look “dark,” but it’s nice to hear that they’re not completely switching up the genre for the TV iteration. How to Train Your Dragon 2 is still on the way, but we have to wait until June 2014 for its release. Until then, we’ve got the impending series to tide us over. Hit the jump to watch the trailers.

The sequel to How to Train Your Dragon has over three years to plan for its June 20, 2014 release.  To match the heartwarming excellence of the original, DreamWorks Animation is going to enter into production right about… now.  Writer/director Dean DeBlois spoke a the dedication of USC’s new Marilyn and Jeffrey Katzenberg Center for Animation recently, and informed the audience that several drafts of the script have been completed and the filmmakers have just begun the storyboarding process.

Jay Baruchel, Craig Ferguson, America Ferrera, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, T.J. Miller, Kristen Wiig, and Gerard Butler are all set to reprise their roles from the first movie.  Hit the jump for more on How to Train Your Dragon 2, including plot details and its place in a planned trilogy.

On Easter weekend the animated hit Rio managed to hold on to its number one perch for a second weekend in a row with an estimated $26.8 million.  The padding between Fox’s birds and the Tyler Perry’s bawd was pretty slim, however.  In second place Madea’s Big Happy Family was right behind Rio with an estimated $25.8 million.

Woo-hoo.  Folks, it looks like 2011 has indeed soared to its first big weekend win in months on the wings of Fox’s Rio.  The 3D animated toon rose from the ashes of a lower than expected Friday figure to earn an estimated $40 million for the three day frame.  Unfortunately, there was not a lot of love left over for Wes Craven’s Scream 4 but, no matter!  The weekend should still end up ahead of last year by approximately 12%.