With reviews only slightly better than the savaging heaped on Sharon Stone’s return to the screen as a been-around-the-block femme fatale, Fox’s Ice Age 2: The Meltdown took even Fox exec’s by surprise, grossing $68 million this past weekend.

The CG-animated sequel left all other freshmen in its frosty wake. Warner Bros. ATL took third-place with $12.5 million. U Pic’s tongue-in-cheek horror flick Slither finished eighth with a paltry $3.7 million. Sony Pictures’ Basic Instinct 2 showed how bankrupt that idea was, mustering just enough money to cover part of Stone’s salary, with a gross of $3.2 million in 10th-place.

With Meltdown energizing the box-office, the top 10 films amassed $131.4 million, up 38% compared with the same weekend last year, when Dimension’s Sin City took the top slot with a bow of $29.1 million.

According to a statistical analysis by The Hollywood Reporter, Ice’s per-theater average of $17,785 broke the record for the biggest March opening of all time. That mark was set by previously set by the first Ice Age, which opened with $46.3 million in 2002. When the final weekend figures are announced today, Meltdown could register as the second-biggest animated opening, ranking behind only the $108 million amassed by Shrek 2 in May 2004.