The movie-going public was in the mood to see a classic Hollywood horror archetype over the weekend: zombies. Yep, the walking dead, made popular by George Romero so many years ago, were feasting in darkened theaters across the country. According to Box Office Mojo estimates available at the time of this writing, Sony's (NYSE: SNE) Zombieland made the most money at domestic theaters over the past weekend, taking in $25 million.

Sony also captured second place with its computer cartoon, Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs. That film is on its way to a total haul of over $100 million. At the moment, it has better than $80 million in the bank. Shareholders of Disney (NYSE: DIS), however, had their own computer cartoons in the marketplace as well. The double feature of Pixar's Toy Story and Toy Story 2 came in third with $12 million. To be honest, I thought the idea of running those two back-to-back would be too much to take for the attention spans of the younger crowd. I know it would be way too much for me to take.

I read a surprising article over at Boxofficemojo by Brandon Gray. The author highlighted the foreign financial performance of News Corp.'s (NASDAQ: NWS) computer-animated cartoon Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, the third entry in the popular franchise. Amazingly, Dinosaurs has now grossed $667 million at theaters outside the domestic market.

What's so interesting about that? Well, it means that the project now occupies third place on the all-time foreign chart. Gray says the number-one film on this chart is Titanic, which was a co-production between News Corp. and Viacom (NYSE: VIA). Coming in second is Time Warner's (NYSE: TWX) The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

Disney (NYSE: DIS), a media business that competes with Time Warner (NYSSE: TWX) and Viacom (NYSE: VIA), is currently holding a four-day fan convention in California called the D23 Expo. According to Julia Boorstin over at CNBC.com, you might consider it a Comic-Con-like event strictly for the Mouse. As far as I can tell, this initiative is a smart marketing move. Disney is able to promote a lot of its content in a very targeted fashion.

Of particular interest is one piece of content that was highlighted in an article at the Los Angeles Times website. Disney is making a significant bet on an upcoming cartoon called The Princess and the Frog. It won't be a flashy 3-D production. Instead, it's animated in a 2-D environment.

Monday, August 31, 2009, will go down as one strange trading day. Disney (NYSE: DIS) buys Marvel (NYSE: MVL). BloggingStocks reported the details of the deal here.

As a long-time shareholder of Disney, I have to ask: Does CEO Bob Iger know what the heck he's doing anymore? I thought the news was quite surreal. I suppose we all knew that Marvel would be a takeover target someday but, honestly, I thought some other media conglomerate, like maybe News Corp. (NASDAQ: NWS), would do a deal before the Mouse would.

The domestic box-office estimates for the July 4th holiday weekend are in. According to Boxofficemojo, at the time of this writing, the results are too close to call. Both Viacom's (NYSE: VIA) Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and News Corp.'s (NASDAQ: NWS) Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs are credited with the same amount of money: $42.5 million. Boxofficemojo is giving Dinosaurs the edge for now and calling it the top movie, presumably because the per-theater average for the computer cartoon is slightly higher.

I previously discussed News Corp.'s strong opening with Dinosaurs, but unfortunately, I'm not so sure the movie lived up to it. When the second Ice Age was released back in 2006, it scored $68 million in its three-day debut weekend. Dinosaurs didn't do as well, but let's take into account the film's Wednesday opening, and tally up the gross for the five-day period, since some of the excitement that might have been reserved for the weekend could have been spread over the mid-week showings. Even by that standard, as of the current estimate, Dinosaurs has taken in a little less than the second Ice Age.

News Corp.'s (NASDAQ: NWS) new computer cartoon, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, had a strong domestic debut this past Wednesday. It opened with $13.8 million on that day, which represents a record-breaking performance for an animated feature released in the middle of the week. Now, just recently, I mentioned how I hate it when Hollywood promotes the breaking of a record. It tends to be very qualified. This situation is no different. Still, I'll give credit where credit is due. Dinosaurs is doing well so far.

We'll have to see how the weekend ultimately treats the new feature. The competition is stiff. It's the July 4th holiday, and Viacom (NYSE: VIA) is out there with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Thankfully, News Corp. won't have too much to worry about from Disney's (NYSE: DIS) Pixar cartoon Up. As can be seen by a Boxofficemojo chart, the excitement surrounding Up has faded. News Corp. was naturally counting on this to happen by this point in time.

Well, Viacom's (NYSE: VIA) Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen took command of the domestic box-office weekend. No surprise after observing what the film did last Wednesday when it opened. According to Boxofficemojo, Fallen, as of early estimates, grossed $112 million during the three-day period starting Friday. The film has taken in over $200 million so far once the days leading up to the weekend are added in. Excellent business. Especially considering that the sequel is doing better than its predecessor at this point, according to a comparison chart (this chart includes a comparison with Iron Man as well, so just focus on the Transformers franchise).

Growth. You've got to love it. I'm sure Viacom does. Disney (NYSE: DIS) isn't doing badly, either. Although not a huge hit, The Proposal did respectable business. It came in second with $18 million. It should eventually reach $100 million.

Looks like Disney's (NYSE: DIS) The Proposal, starring Sandra Bullock, was sober enough to beat Time Warner's (NYSE: TWX) The Hangover.

According to early estimates at Boxofficemojo, the movie grossed $34 million at domestic theaters, making it the top film of the past three days. Proposal was expected to earn $26 million during its first weekend out in the marketplace.

If this weekend's box office results say anything, it's that success in the movie business resists predictability. How else do you explain the money that Time Warner's (NYSE: TWX) The Hangover is grossing? I haven't seen the film, so I'm sure there's something to it. Nevertheless, it just didn't seem like it would be a big hit. Guess the word of mouth on it has been pretty good.

Hangover, as of early estimates at Boxofficemojo, took in $33 million at domestic theaters over the past three days, good for first place. It beat Disney's (NYSE: DIS) Pixar project Up, which took in about $30 million and came in second. Hangover actually was the number-one movie last weekend as well. So far, it's taken in more than $100 million.

Recently, DreamWorks Animation (NYSE: DWA) announced that it would be making more movies. According to the press release, the move calls for five movies every two years. The plan would be for one year to have the normal two projects, while the next year would have three releases.

This is an interesting scheme. It has many implications. First, it means that CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg is extremely confident in his company's ability to produce compelling content. Second, it means that he believes that 3D theaters will be more important than ever in the near future. Third, it is a direct attack against Disney's (NYSE: DIS) Pixar asset. DreamWorks Animation is, without a doubt, becoming much more cutthroat in its competitive stance.

Disney (NYSE: DIS) and Pixar have a great thing going with their new cartoon Up. Last weekend, the movie debuted in the top spot. This past weekend, Disney just might retain that number-one designation. And if it does, I can tell you that this is cool news.

It's very close. As of this writing, early estimates at Boxofficemojo credit Up with a take of $44 million for the past three days at domestic theaters. Time Warner's (NYSE: TWX) The Hangover is said to have grossed $43 million. If those numbers by any chance hold, then Up will be in first place and Hangover will come in second.

Disney (NYSE: DIS) soared to the number-one spot this past weekend with its new Pixar project, Up. The computer cartoon grossed roughly $68 million at domestic theaters as of early estimates, according to Boxofficemojo.

Disney took a lot of thunder away from News Corp. (NYSE: NWS) and its Ben Stiller comedy/fantasy Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian. That movie dropped to second place, taking in about $25 million.

I'm sure you've heard about this by now. It's been all over the blogs and discussion boards. An article at The New York Times has spurned discussion over whether or not Disney's (NYSE: DIS) next Pixar film, Up, is shareholder-friendly. In other words, has it been designed so that it can make a lot of money? Or, is it instead just another self-satisfying exercise for its creators, shareholder value be damned?

Well, here's a quote that's gotten some play. Co-director of Up, Pete Docter, has stated that he doesn't really care about the money potential of a project. He said: "We make these films for ourselves. We're kind of selfish that way." Oh, gee, thanks a lot, you overpaid Pixar punk. Just out of curiosity, do you care at all about shareholders like myself who have held Disney for a really long time? Do you realize that the dividend received no raise this year?

According to reports, Disney (NYSE: DIS) hasn't been satisfied with the Toon Disney cable channel. To be sure, you don't hear a lot of buzz about that property. Now, though, that's all about to change (in theory, at least), as Disney management is intent on turning this once relatively dull asset into a thriving franchise generator.

Make no mistake, this news about Disney XD should be important to shareholders (I am one, and will be watching this rebranding investment intently). That's the new name of the Disney Toon channel. Sounds kind of cool, doesn't it? Disney wants it to be cool so that it can appeal to boys. And that's the crux here: Disney Channel already has the girls market cornered. The Mouse wants to become more relevant to the male tween demographic. Don't think that the media company can't appeal to boys. It can, as the oft cited Cars example proves (I have no idea why that Pixar creation is such a hit with boys, but it doesn't matter what I think, it is). A major push is planned for XD, and the web will be utilized to great effect, as will Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) iTunes digital store and Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT) Xbox 360 Live service (this source talks about the strategy). Content will be distributed over these platforms and will be used to build brand equity; Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) and Verizon's (NYSE: VZ) FiOS will also be utilized to promote XD.

I found myself writing about General Electric's (NYSE: GE) NBC the other day, specifically about CEO Jeff Zucker's apparent flummoxed realization that radical changes may be needed to stanch the ratings erosion that have plagued the major broadcast networks in this brave new media world. Now, I have another, equally interesting subject to look at: Jay Leno will be given a talk show after he hands The Tonight Show over to Conan O'Brien. The program will air on weeknights from 10 p.m. to 11 p.m.

As we all probably know by now, NBC was intent on having O'Brien take over Leno's position as a way of ensuring that he would stay at the network. Leno, as one would imagine, reportedly hated giving the job up. NBC, however, did not want Leno to head over to another network. Supposedly, Disney's (NYSE: DIS) ABC was perhaps interested in taking Leno on. So, the powers that be at the Peacock net have secured the services of Mr. Leno by offering him the chance to do something new: namely, distribute his schtick at an earlier time.

Okay, I'll tell you, I think this is a ridiculous idea. On many levels. Let's talk about level one: is this even going to work? Do people want to see Leno at 10 p.m.? Hey, maybe they will. But I get the feeling that this might be too much of a change for people used to seeing Leno at 11:30. Let's go to level two: why does NBC want to program what would essentially be two Tonight Shows? Won't there be some cannibalization going on here? You always hear media companies whining about cannibalization.