Toy Story 3 held on to first place in a unique battle of sentimental family flicks, holding off Grown Ups. In its second weekend, Pixar‘s trilogy entry brought in $59 million, justifying its $226.5 million domestic gross so far. The toys now hold the 7th-largest 10-day opening in box office history.

Adam Sandler continues to prove his comedic worth, no matter how low brow the comedy, as Grown Ups had an impressive opening weekend, earning $41 million in the runner-up position. It over-shot the other wide debut, the star-driven action comedy Knight & Day, which earned $20.5 million. Another sign that Hollywood movie stardom is losing its financial luster?

The Karate Kid continues to outperform The A-Team in the 4th and 5th spots, respectively. The former earned another $15 million, bringing its total to $135 million, while Hannibal and the boys are fizzling out quickly, with a small $6 million in its third weekend. It has now earned only $62.8 million, meaning that the plan didn’t quite…come together.

Check out the Top 10 Estimates (movie-weekend; total)

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Pixar‘s third installment of the Toy Story franchise sprinted out of the gates Friday, earning $41 million, the 8th highest Friday gross of all time. It continued to perform through the weekend, earning an estimated total $109 million (which could increase dramatically depending on Fathers’ Day theater-goers). This is Pixar‘s highest opening weekend to date, ousting The Incredibles by nearly $40 million.

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In this episode of the The Film Stage podcast Jordan Raup and Dan Mecca review Harald Zwart’s The Karate Kid (Jordan Raup’s text review here) and Joe Carnahan‘s The A-Team (Jack Giroux’s text review here). We also talk briefly about Debra Granik‘s Winters Bone and discuss the sad state of the summer movie season. Read the full story

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The constant influx of reboots, remakes, updates, sequels, spin-offs, prequels and adaptations have undoubtedly begun to wear down the filmgoers of the world. How can we distinguish a by-the-numbers rehash with a fresh cinematic experience? When the lines start to blur I find it hard to care anymore. Read the full story

The summer blockbuster season has unfortunately stumbled at the starting line after disappointments each weekend. Will we get our first great time at the theater this month? Find out what I think will be worth checking out below and see the trailers by clicking on the synopsis. Read the full story

A new trailer has been released for Harald Zwart‘s (One Night at McCool’s, Pink Panther 2) reboot/remake/reimagining of the The Karate Kid.The film stars Jackie Chan, Jaden Smith and Taraji P. Henson. Check it out below or over on Yahoo in HD. Read the full story

And now, the news you’ve all been waiting for. Or not. Either way, this The Karate Kid remake, starring Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan, does look slightly more promising than the early news led to believe. The biggest reason for this is the apparent training sequence that takes place on the Great Wall of China.

And the updated plot: “Jaden Smith plays Dre, a skateboarding video game buff who is forced to move to China after his single mother (Taraji P. Henson) is forced to transfer to the China for work. Of course, unable to speak Chinese, Dre finds it hard to settle in, and gets beat up by the local bully. Jackie Chan plays Mr. Han (the Mr. Miyagi character), a maintenance man who spots Dre’s black-eye and offers to teach him both martial arts and Chinese, so he can defend against the students of Li Quan Ha’s Fighting dragon school of Kung-Fu. [Slash Film]”

Sure it follows the same principles as the original film, but changes the setting and is apparently making the most of it.

The filmmakers have also changed the names: Chan is Mr. Han and Smith is Dre. This is me wiping the sweat off my brow in relief that the original names would try to be salvaged. Smart move indeed to disregard them.

And who’s this cutie Jaden Smith is pushing, so lovingly, in to the water fountains. A young love interest perhaps?

The Karate Kid opens June 11, 2010

What do you think of these photos? Are you excited for this movie?

Risky Biz Blog reported today that writer Steven Conrad (The Pursuit of Happyness) has been hired to scribe the recently-announced reboot of The Karate Kid, being produced by Will Smith (Hancock). Smith’s son Jaden will be playing Dre, a similar character to that of Ralph Macchio’s Daniel in the original. Jackie Chan joins the cast as Mr. Miyagi (originally played by Pat Morita) and Taraji P. Henson starring as Sherry, Dre’s mother.

I haven’t been keeping track of my reboots lately so the fact that there even is a reboot going into production of The Karate Kid took me by surprise. Frankly, I am sad to see that the idea of the reboot has extended past the comic book movie genre. Some things just should not be made.

What do you think about this latest update on the reboot? Would The Karate Kid work for today’s audiences?