Finding Nemo broke all the opening weekend records for animated films by amassing a total of $70.6 million in its opening 3-day frame.  Monsters Inc. scored Pixar's previous best with some $62.6 million when it opened in November of 2001.  Nemo firmly unseated Jim Carrey's Bruce Almighty, which earned $35.6 million in its sophomore session, just about half of what Finding Nemo grossed.  However Bruce Almighty's drop of 47.6% was better than the declines suffered by The Matrix Reloaded and X2 between their first and second weekends.  Pixar films have tended to have extraordinary legs in the past, so it will be interesting to see if Finding Nemo will continue on in the classic Pixar pattern and manage to sail well past the $200 million barrier or will it follow the current trend of 'sizzle, then fizzle.'  Thematically, at least it appears that Finding Nemo could be hard to beat on Father's Day weekend.

The Matrix Reloaded finished in fourth place behind Paramount's remake of The Italian Job, and suffered an almost 60% decline from its second to its third weekend with a total of just over $15 million, very close to what Spider-Man was still pulling during its fifth weekend of release.  Despite its current total of $232 million there is no chance that The Matrix Reloaded will ever catch Spidey.