Fox's The Simpsons Movie overwhelmed the weekend box office earning an estimated $71.9 million, the best opening ever for a non-sequel animated film, trailing only Shrek the Third ($121.6 million) and Shrek 2 ($108 million) for the all-time animated opening weekend crown.  Homer and crew earned more than the total of their four nearest competitors, validating a clever, unconventional marketing campaign that featured just one major TV marketing partner (see 'The Simpsons Movie's 'Anti-Corporate' Marketing Strategy').

Fox's refusal to let critics view the film weeks ahead of time also appeared to work with the critics since the film garnered nearly universal positive reviews (88% on Rotten Tomatoes).  Clearly Fox wasn't afraid of poor reviews, but the studio was worried that too much information about a movie based on such a well-known property might keep fans away, whereas a little bit of mystery appears to have energized fans of all ages and persuasions -- Fox reports an audience with strong representation from each quadrant, male and female, and over and under 25.  With a strong performance overseas as well, The Simpsons Movie, which cost under $75 million to make, will clearly have a sequel and it has also clearly reinvigorated the property overall, which is good news for Bongo Comics and other purveyors of high quality Simpsons stuff.

Meanwhile Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix dropped just 44% while earning $17.1 million and bringing its total to $241.8 million.  It appears that the 5th Potter film could have trouble making it over the $300 million mark and it could be close call too for Transformers, which ended up in sixth place on its fourth weekend with a total of $284.6 million.  While Transformers may well break the $300 million barrier, it has no shot at catching Spider-Man 3, which at this point looks like it will be the top-grossing film of the year.

Meanwhile two films in their fifth week of release, Pixar's Ratatouille and Fox's Live Free or Die Hard, both did well declining just 34% and 25% respectively.  Ratatouille has earned $180 million and with a total of over $125 million the new Die Hard film is the best-performing Bruce Willis vehicle since The Sixth Sense in 1999.