The summer blockbuster no one sees coming...

By the time Madagascar 3 is released in America on June 8th, it will have been just over three months since the last major family-friendly film.  Mirror Mirror ($159 million and counting off an $85 million budget) and Pirates: Band of Misfits ($23 million here and $85 million overseas off a $55 million budget) certainly weren't flops, but we've seen what amounts to a dearth of family fare over 2012.  Surely that's due to the epic traffic jam that was pre-summer 2011, which saw six major animated features (Gnomeo and Juliet, Rango, Mars Needs Moms, Hop, Rio, and Hoodwinked 2) debuting between February and April, all of which were somewhat handicapped by the sheer volume of concurrent product.  This year we didn't have a single major *new* kid-friendly feature until March 2nd, as as a result Universal's The Lorax powered to an eye-popping $70 million in its opening weekend before ending up with $209 million domestic.  We are currently in the middle of another similar drought.