Cars 2 sped into first place this weekend, but before you sound the horn, there are a couple caveats.

Cars 2 did indeed come in first this weekend with an estimated $68 million, but as Pixar films go, that’s nothing to sing about. Going on attendance as opposed to dollars due to inflation, the second film in the series only beat out A Bug’s Life, Ratatouille and Toy Story. While people weren’t exactly clamoring for this sequel, the merchandising from the first movie did so well that it is believed that is about the only reason this film exists. Another movie, more merchandise.

We’ll see how it fares with a couple more weekends,but it doesn’t look like this one will be setting the film world on fire like some of the previous Pixar productions.

Coming in second was the new Cameron Diaz vehicle, Bad Teacher.  It brought in an estimated $31 million, but Sony has to be singing songs of happiness today as the audience skewed 63 percent female.  Along the same lines as the current hit Bridesmaids that is still bringing in several million a week.

Normally a film sees around a 40 to 50 percent drop in its second weekend. Then you have Green Lantern. Coming in at $18.5 million, that’s around a 65 percent drop from the first weekend. I think we can officially classify this movie as a disaster at this point.

Super 8 came in fourth with $12.1 million, bringing it’s total to $95.2 million and in line with films of this type.

Rounding out the top five Mr. Popper’s Penguins with $10.3 million.  The fact this movie even exists boggles my mind, so lets just leave it there.

The only major release next week is Transformers: Dark of the Moon … PREPARE FOR BAYHEM!

Yes, it’s true, a $53.2 million opening weekend is a disappointment in this day and age for big budget films. Add in the fact that Green Lantern was supposed to shepherd in a new age of movies based on DC Comics, and it gets even worse.

Where the issues for Green Lantern really kick in is that revenue dropped 22 percent between Friday and Saturday, a far larger than usual number for a major film.  There is no way the pounding this film took from the critics didn’t play a factor, and the average comments on sites such as Twitter that I saw over the weekend eld me to believe the paid reviewers got it right this time.

The final insult?  Based on attendance instead of dollar amount, Green Lantern fared worse than Daredevil or Ghost Rider … ouch.

Coming in second was Super 8 with $21.2 million, just over a 40 percent decline from last week, but seeing as 50 percent is considered average, this film may have some legs to it.

Mr. Popper’s Penguins opened in third place with $18.2 million.  I think this means we’re officially over Jim Carrey, and I for once couldn’t be happier about this.  He hasn’t been funny in years, and even then it was very touch and go when he actually was good.  Even discounting Carrey, this film did poorly for a summer family film, apparently no one wanted to watch a movie about a guy with penguins in his house.

X-Men: First Class came in third with $11.5 million and a decline of 52.5 percent from last weekend.  This marks the third worst weekend for any X-Men film, so it looks like this one is definitely not living up to expectations.

Rounding out the top 5 was The Hangover: Part II with $9.6 million, off 45.5 percent from last weekend.  It’s still at $233.1 million domestic gross, however, off of an $80 million dollar budget.  Translation?  It’s in the black.  I still would say a third film is on the way.

Other recent films such as Kung-Fu Panda 2 took a major hit, falling to sixth and not performing anywhere near expectations with $8.7 million this weekend. Bridesmaids brought in nearly $7.5 million and just keeps chugging along. This movie just won’t quit.

Next week?  Cars 2 from Pixar … prepare for an astronomical number.