The freaks from Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, dominated the box office this weekend, grossing $63.5M, and had the seventh biggest opening of all time for an animated feature. It also enjoyed the best opening for any animated film this year, just edging out this summer’s hit, WALL-E, which grossed $63.1M on its opening weekend.

Role Models starring Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott as two men under a court order to mentor two kids scored big in its first weekend grossing $19.3M. This was a great opening for this movie and it should perform well over the next couple of weeks as the reviews have been good and word of mouth will be positive. This is exactly the kind of success that both Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott needed to cement their status as bankable comedy stars.

This weekend’s final new release, Soul Men, starring Samuel L. Jackson and Bernie Mac opened to a disappointing $5.6M. This is the first film to be released after Bernie Mac’s untimely death and audiences may have shied away from seeing the comedian so soon after. Fortunately for Mac’s fans, he was also one of the stars of this weekend’s box office champ, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa.

Among holdovers, I vastly under estimated the staying power of High School Musical 3 which grossed $9.3M, slipping only 39%, to bring its total up to $75.7M. To see how all of my predictions fared, see the chart below.