Box Office: The Croods Rules; Tina Fey's Admission Lacks for, Well, Admissions

Animated caveman comedy scores second-biggest debut of year: $44.7 million; Gerard Butler breaks flop streak with $30.5 million-grossing Olympus Has Fallen

There haven't been too many pleasant surprises at the box office this year, but this weekend had two.

The animated The Croods and the blow-'em-up Olympus Has Fallen both debuted bigger than predicted; The Croods' $44 million estimated domestic take was, in fact, the second-biggest Friday-Sunday opening of 2013. Internationally, the film took in a whopping $63.3 million.

Tina Fey's Admission, costarring Paul Rudd, failed to join the fun, with the romantic comedy off to a $6.4 million start that its own studio termed soft.

Of the weekend's three major new releases, the top-grossing The Croods also scored best with armchair critics; the caveman comedy rated an A with opening-weekend audiences polled by CinemaScore.

Olympus Has Fallen took second place in the standings with a much-stronger-than-expected $30.5 million. The gross is the biggest this year for an action movie; it is star Gerard Butler's best showing, by far, since a string of flops after 2010's The Bounty Hunter.

Admission, meanwhile, opened back in fifth place, failing to finish ahead of holdovers Oz the Great and Powerful and Halle Berry's The Call.  

In Fey's still-short box-office career, Admission ranks at the back of the pack. The comedy is her smallest-debuting, live-action movie yet.

Elsewhere, the R-rated Spring Breakers broke wide, and broke well, grossing $6.4 million for a sixth-place finish.

After a great wide-release run, Silver Linings Playbook, the last Best Picture contender from the Oscar class of 2012 to stick around in the standings, fell to 11th place. After 19 weeks in theaters, the Jennifer Lawrence comedy-drama has grossed about $127 million domestically.

Overall, it was a down weekend for Hollywood, at least when compared to the same weekend last year. As big as The Croods and Olympus Has Fallen were, they weren't nearly as big as a little old film called The Hunger Games.

Here's a complete look at the weekend's top movies, per Friday-Sunday studio estimates and stats as compiled by Exhibitor Relations.

1. The Croods, $44.7 million
2. Olympus Has Fallen, $30.5 million
3. Oz the Great and Powerful, $22 million
4. The Call, $8.7 million
5. Admission, $6.4 million
6. Spring Breakers, $5 million
7. The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, $4.3 million
8. Jack the Giant Slayer, $3 million
9. Identity Thief, $2.5 million
10. Snitch, $1.9 million