‘Monsters University’ May Trump ‘World War Z’ at Box Office

According to early predictions, "Monsters University" could give the makers of "World War Z" a fright with greater ticket sales over this opening weekend. Even "Man of Steel" could see its collections being topped by the animated flick.

LA Times reports that "Monsters University" could bring in $80 million this weekend per pre-release estimates. "World War Z", on the other hand, may rake in $40 million, because of its not being based on a well-known box office property.

"Monsters University" is a prequel to the 2001's "Monsters Inc.", and is set during the college days of Mike (voiced by Billy Crystal) and Sulley (voiced by John Goodman), at a time when they weren't quite best buddies. Produced by Pixar, the film is directed by Dan Scanlon. In an interview with Yahoo! Movies, Scanlon explained the decision to make a sequel. "It's really that - realizing that, hey, we have more story to tell. We don't always know. I think we make the movies, initially, with the one movie in mind. But we do love the characters, and so we kind of miss the characters when the movie is over. But I think what happens is, every now and then you realize there's more to tell, or an idea comes up. It's nice now to be making enough movies that we can fit in a sequel every now and then," he said.

"World War Z" stars Brad Pitt who plays an employee of the United Nations. His character, Gerry Lane, rushes around the world in a battle against zombies who're out to destroy mankind. Produced by Pitt and his partners at Plan B, the post apocalyptic movie is directed by Marc Forster. The movie went through its fair share of trials, what with a change of screenwriters and crew and even a reshot ending. In an interview with Christian Science Monitor, Pitt vouched that he was confident of its success. "I know it works. I know everyone involved is going to be happy. It's just a question of how happy. We're proud of it. When you get involved with a film like this at this scale, at this cost, there's more responsibility to meet that number immediately," he said.