We all knew that Men in Black 3 would wind up overtaking The Avengers after three weeks of record-breaking dominance. What we didn’t know was that that would wind up as MIB3’s sole accomplishment this weekend. With a huge release in 4,248 locations, and on one of the biggest movie-going weekends of the year, MIB3 is not exactly setting the box office on fire with its three-day estimate of $55 million.

The 2012 Annie Awards were held last night, and critical favorite Rango ended up deservedly taking home the Best Animated Feature award. Gore Verbinski’s quirky western also took home the award for Best Writing in a Feature Production, Best Editing, and the Members Favorite Award, but lost Best Directing to Kung Fu Panda 2’s Jennifer Yuh Nelson. Bill Nighy won Best Voice Acting for Arthur Christmas, and Rise of the Planet of the Apes took home the Character Animation in a Live Action Feature Production award.

On the television side of things, The Simpsons was awarded the top prize as well as Best Directing and Best Writing. Heading into the Academy Awards, Rango is our clear frontrunner. The Adventures of Tintin was pegged as the film’s biggest competition at the Oscar ceremony, but the Steven Spielberg film was ultimately left out of the nominations. Hit the jump to see the full list of Annie Awards Winners.

The nominations for the 84th Annual Academy Awards have finally been unveiled. Many of the categories have fallen in line just as most have predicted (I fared alright with my predictions, but not great), with Hugo scoring 11 nods, followed closely by The Artist with 10. The biggest surprises are War Horse and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close getting in for Best Picture, the exclusion of The Adventures of Tintin from Best Animated Feature, and The Tree of Life nabbing Best Picture and Best Director nods (hooray!). On the snub side of things, despite landing the most precursor critics awards of any other actor in the race thus far, Albert Brooks was denied a Best Supporting Actor nod for his stellar work in Drive (boo). Additionally, Tilda Swinton was overlooked for giving the best performance of the year in We Need to Talk About Kevin, and AMPAS has no love for Michael Fassbender‘s haunting work in Shame.

There’s still plenty to be happy about, as Gary Oldman has his first ever Oscar Nomination (yes, that’s right) and Melissa McCarthy is a Best Supporting Actress nominee. Hit the jump to check out the full list of nominees. The 84th Academy Awards will be presented by Billy Crystal on February 26th.

Continuing on with our look at the 2012 Oscar race, today we delve into Best Animated Feature and the technical categories. As Pixar’s Cars 2 was the studio’s worst-received feature to date (it currently sits at 38% on Rotten Tomatoes), we’ve got ourselves an actual competition in the Animated Feature category. Not only that, but if all 18 films that were submitted to the Academy are deemed eligible, we’ll have a total of five nominated films. This leaves us to debate the merits of Rango and The Adventures of Tintin against the likes of Puss in Boots and Arthur Christmas.

Additionally, we’ve taken a stab at Best Original Screenplay, Best Adapted Screenplay, and the technical categories. As these are incredibly tricky to predict this far out (and my picks would be doomed to haunt me come February), I’ve simply listed a couple of frontrunners in each category instead of going in depth. Though it’s still early, we’ve got an overall picture of how things look like they’ll stack up; so hit the jump to check out the state of the race so far. If you missed our previous preview articles, be sure to take a look at our picks for Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress, and Best Actor and Best Actress.

Under consideration for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature will be 18 contenders, some of which have yet to have their qualifying runs on screen. Major features include The Adventures of Tintin, Rango and Cars 2. Disney/Pixar has won 6 out of 10 years, while winning the last four in a row, but with DreamWorks’ Kung Fu Panda 2 and Puss in Boots in the running, it could very well be their turn. Though there are some dark horses in the mix.

Submitted films must satisfy the category’s qualifying rules, including their theatrical release, in order to continue the submission process. In order to activate the award category at all, no fewer than 8 animated features must be released in theaters in Los Angeles County within the calendar year. If these films meet requirements for other categories, including Best Picture, they may be eligible for those awards as well. Hit the jump to see the full list.

At the moment the estimates for the weekend’s two top films are dead even: a box office rarity.  Both Cowboys and Aliens and The Smurfs are claiming estimates of $36.2 million – a figure that is slightly embarrassing for one film and a near miracle for the other.

We all know that this hasn’t been the best year for movies at the domestic box office.  Only a handful of weekends have come out ahead of 2010 in terms of profit.  Luckily, this Memorial Day Weekend was one of them.  Traditionally one of the most profitable of Hollywood’s entire year, this year’s holiday more than measured up.  First, The Hangover Part II crushed the All-Time opening for a comedy.  Then estimates put the combined profits of the domestic box office at nearly 50% above last year’s four-day holiday frame and 10% above 2007’s profits (the year which held the all-time record).  Here’s how the top ten looks, including revised estimates for the three-day weekend:

Here are the estimates for the top ten films this Memorial Day Weekend.  Note that the weekend figure includes only the three days of a traditional box office weekend, even though both of the week’s major new releases (The Hangover Part II and Kung Fu Panda 2) debuted last Thursday.  We’ll have a full analysis of the four/five day holiday tomorrow, but today I would just like to give a quick shout out to Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris which has made it into the top ten on the strength of just 58 venues. It is the first time I’ve personally seen an Allen film in the weekend top ten since… ever

If you’ve been hanging around the site for a while, you know that we tend to post a lot of content throughout the course of a week. From interviews and reviews to general entertainment news, set visits, and niche stories, we always do our best to provide you the reader with a wide spectrum of coverage. Nevertheless, our front page only holds fifteen stories at a time meaning that some of our most interesting content has a tendency to fall through the cracks.  In an attempt to bring these stories back to the forefront, we are introducing this weekly “Top 5″ feature which we hope will prevent readers from missing out on the best Collider has to offer.

In this, our inaugural week, we’re bringing you a recap of Brendan’s mathematical breakdown of dueling Snow White films, our look at dimly lit 2d theater projection, a possible R-rated Riddick, Michael Sheen reading Twilight fan fiction, and Jack Black discussing with Steve where not to use body soap. Check out the quick recaps and links after the jump.

Derivative? Check. Well reviewed?  Not really.  Kicking crazy ass at the domestic box office?  Oh, hell yes.  I am, of course, talking about Warner Brothers’ The Hangover Part II, the film that has already broken the one day record for a live-action comedy with its stunning $31.7 million Thursday debut.  That was on top of its $10.4 million midnight take – easily the highest of 2011.  Day two for the Wolf Pack brought in an additional $30 million from 3,615 locations, giving the film a current estimate of $61.6 million in total.  If projections hold, The Hangover II could end up with a five day total of over $135 million and a spot in the top five of all-time (four-day) Memorial Day Weekend debuts.  On the strength of this sequel, Memorial Day 2011 is going to crush the total box office take of 2010 and could even end up topping the 2007 holiday – the most profitable on record. Thursday also saw the debut of Kung Fu Panda 2, which earned an estimated $18.98 million between Thursday and Friday and is now projected to earn $55 million over the four-day Memorial Day weekend.  That would be a bit below the $60.2 million the original KFP took in over its first three days back in June of 2008, but projections are not always accurate.  We’ll have updates and analysis as the holiday weekend progresses.

With Kung Fu Panda 2 opening this weekend, I recently got to interview Dustin Hoffman and Jack Black for our partners at Omelete.  While some sequels spend a lot of time reminding the audience who the characters are, one of the many things that’s great about Kung Fu Panda 2 is that it starts like you know the world and it never slows down.  In addition, while I’ve been very vocal about bad 3D, Kung Fu Panda 2 features some incredible 3D and the best part is the filmmakers used 3D to help tell the story.  If you have the option, you really want to see this in 3D.

While I’ve been doing interviews for almost six years, my conversation with Hoffman and Black is without a doubt one of the craziest I’ve ever had during a press junket.  Even though I don’t want to spoil what happens, I’ll say that wearing my Threadless t-shirt that says rub me on your butt was not my best idea.  Or maybe it was.  Judge for yourself after the jump.

Kung Fu Panda 2 stands as a shining example of DreamWorks finally getting the sequel formula right. Building off of the success of the original 2008 hit, Panda 2 delivers more laughs, larger scale, finer animation, and arguably more heart. Jack Black returns as the  incompetently powerful Po the panda to battle the next stage in warfare that threatens to make hand-to-hand combat extinct. Joined by the Furious Five, the group wages war amidst the beautiful landscape of China in thrilling sequences of 3D combat that highlight the evolution of the fighting in the first film. With newcomer Jennifer Yuh at the helm, backed by the returning talents of writers Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger along with the full voice cast, Kung Fu Panda 2 is the latest animated film to blur the lines between the admiration from adults and kids alike, and brings bang for your buck in 3D. Hit the jump for the full review.

With Kung Fu Panda 2 opening this weekend, I recently got to interview Lucy Liu for our partners at Omelete.  While some sequels spend a lot of time reminding the audience who the characters are, one of the many things that’s great about Kung Fu Panda 2 is that it starts like you know the world and it never slows down.  In addition, while I’ve been very vocal about bad 3D, Kung Fu Panda 2 features some incredible 3D and the best part is the filmmakers used 3D to help tell the story.  If you have the option, you really want to see this in 3D.

During my interview with Liu, we talked about making the sequel and her thoughts on the success of the first film.  In addition, with Liu working on so many other projects, I got updates on director RZA’s  The Man With the Iron Fists (which also stars Russell Crowe), Detachment and East Fifth Bliss. Hit the jump to watch.

With Kung Fu Panda 2 opening this weekend, I recently got to interview director Jennifer Yuh for our partners at Omelete.  While some sequels spend a lot of time reminding the audience who the characters are, one of the many things that’s great about Kung Fu Panda 2 is that it starts like you know the world and the people and it never slows down.  In addition, while I’ve been very vocal about bad 3D, Kung Fu Panda 2 features some incredible 3D shots and the best part is that the filmmakers have used 3D to help tell the story.  If you have the option, you really want to see this in 3D.

During my interview with Yuh, we talked about if the script and story changed as they were making the film, the great use of 3D, how the story is darker than I expected, did the fact that they’re going to make a 3rd Kung Fu Panda cause them to adjust the story, and a lot more.  Hit the jump to check it out.

I’m gonna do us all a favor by not using the words matey, or scalliwag in this article.  I won’t be referring to the box office take of the latest Pirates of the Caribbean sequel as “booty,” either.  I’ll just tell you that On Stranger Tides has earned the highest first-weekend total of any release of 2011, with an estimated $90.1 million from 4,155 locations (over $346 million worldwide).  Then I’ll make with the equivocating, savvy?