The animated movie Up! has box office receipts headed in the same direction… Up… way up! The Buena Vista release snagged an impressive $68.2 million in its first weekend of release, easily beating all other contenders and all without a memory upgrade for the theaters that hosted the filmed marvel. The per-screen average of $18K per showing was also easily the highest of any film this week.

Night at the Museum: Battle for the Smithsonian fared second-best, ringing up an additional $25.5 million in ticket sales to bring its 10-day total to $105 million, but with a $150 million budget, the film’s still far from reaching black ink territory. Spider-Man filmmaker Sam Raimi’s return to horror with Drag Me To Hell underperformed, raking in only $16.6 million to barely capture third place; Terminator Salvation was close behind in fourth place with $16.1 million. After 10 days in release, Terminator Salvation has raked in barely $90 million against a $200 million budget and is fading fast, meaning the franchise’s first Schwarzenegger-free installment may be a box office bust.

On the opposite end of the scale, Star Trek may have been in fifth place, but it still raked in $12.8 million after a month since its initial release and has crossed already the $200 million barrier, with a domestic total of $209.5 million and an additional $92 million in foreign box office so far, meaning the blockbuster has now crossed the $300 million barrier in global ticket sales. Not bad. (And thanks to a stronger foreign box office, X-men Origins: Wolverine is still just ahead of Star Trek with $315 million worldwide, even though the film’s lost momentum in the US.)

Welcome to the latest episode of “Dumb Decisions by NBC.” I’m your host, HollywoodIdiocy.com.

Clearly, NBC didn’t learn this past season when it canceled Scrubs a year ago, only to have ABC pick it up off the scrap heap and pair it with Better Off Ted, the best new workplace comedy since The Office. The strategy worked so well for the Alphabet Network that Scrubs has been renewed for yet another season, even though Zach Braff will only appear in six episodes next year.

Undeterred, NBC has made even more Dumb Decisions this year, just to prove that the network could be better-managed by computer memory than the current Entertainment Chief. Heck, forget computer memory, just put Tina Fey in charge and triple the NBC executive collective IQ in one fell swoop!

Here’s a list of this season’s crop of Dumb Decisions by NBC:

1) Turning over five hours a week of prime time programming to “Leno In Prime Time,” rather than, you know, actual entertainment. I predict Leno’s new prime time gig will die in the ratings, but NBC won’t care until a new administration takes over.

2) After ordering a super-sized season of My Name Is Earl, NBC cancels the four-year-old comedy at a time when there’s still plenty of life in it. Word is the blue collar comedy didn’t fit in with the new lineup of white collar workplace comedies NBC is favoring on Thursday nights. ABC and Fox are both reportedly interested, so My Name Is Earl is destined to become the next Scrubs debacle for NBC.

3) After Medium became the best-performing show on Monday nights for NBC during May sweeps (the net didn’t even test Heroes or Chuck in May, ending their seasons early), the network decided to forgo a fifth season of the psychic crime drama; word is CBS, which owns the show, will sandwich Medium right between Ghost Whisperer and Numbers on Friday nights next season, where it’s likely to prosper.

At least NBC renewed Chuck and Heroes, but with Leno taking over so much prime time real estate, will the Peacock even be considered a “Big Four” network anymore? Blame a bad economy all you want… there’s no excuse for such lame-brain decisions.

Multiple online sources are confirming that NBC has given an initial 13-episode renewal to Chuck; the “back nine” episodes will be determined most likely in the fall, depending on ratings performance. However, there are conditions attached.

Chuck will now be a show on weight loss pills. In other words, the ensemble cast will be scaled back, with some actors severely limited in the number of episodes they will appear in going forward; also, at least one supporting cast member may be cut. Finally, two members of the writing staff will be cut in further cost-cutting measures.

But in the end… who cares? Chuck will see a third season!

With an estimated $48 million three-day take, Angels and Demons, the prequel to the Ron Howard-directed, Tom Hanks-starring DaVinci Code, just barely took top honors at the box office this weekend, despite deep protests from the Catholic church over the movies “historical distortions.”

Coming in a close second place, Star Trek managed $43 million in its second week of release, bringing its total to date to over $147 million. Third place was Marvel Entertainment’s merry mutant slice-fest, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which drew a meager $14.8 million in its third week, finally topping $150 million to enter profit mode, but Star Trek is breathing on Wolverine’s heels and is expected to overtake the superhero flick in the coming week.

If that isn’t appetite suppressant enough for you, perhaps this’ll do the trick: no other movie even came close to topping $10 million in box office. Things should heat up considerably next weekend, however, as both Night At the Museum: Showdown at the Smithsonian and Terminator Salvation are scheduled to open, with Terminator Salvation expected to open huge.

Marvel Comics’ first X-Men spinoff movie, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, enjoyed a healthy $85 million opening weekend against a $150 million production budget, meaning the film made more than half of its budget back in the first weekend, usually a sign of a successful run. The Hugh Jackman vehicle was, of course, the top draw of the weekend.

Coming in a very distant second was Ghosts of Girlfriends Past with $15.4 million, also in its debut weekend, and second-week underdog thriller Obsessed with $12 million. No other movie even came close to cracking the $10 million barrier.

The mutant drama will receive major competition in its second weekend, however, as the much-anticipated J.J. Abrams redeux on the Star Trek franchise takes its opening bow in what is anticipated to be the first film of the summer season to top $100 million in its opening weekend… anything less would probably disappoint.

Angels and Demons opens the week after that, followed by Terminator Salvation, before May closes out with the debut of the animated family film, Up, so hold off on the birth announcements until at least Terminator Salvation has made its opening bow, OK? May looks to be a hot month for movies.