Despite Disney apparently doing everything in its power to try to make John Carter into something it isn’t, it mustered a disappointing $30 million in its opening weekend and fell short to The Lorax in its second week.

Every week we try to bring you a cross section of some of the week’s best viral videos from brands and individuals. In most cases, there’s something we can learn and apply to our own video marketing efforts for every one of the examples–though if you’re only watching for fun, and not for any higher learning purpose, it’s fine by me.

Last week’s hyper-marketed Act of Valor ended up being the #1 movie last weekend, and its efforts to strive for realism (real bullets, real SEALs) paid off for a movie that normally might get overlooked.

Last week we saw the top 2 movies from the previous week switch places and take the top spots from the new releases, as the Ghost Rider sequel failed to emulate any of the success of its predecessor.

I spend a lot of time on this site, and with clients, talking about how important it is for brands and businesses to think about creating online video content as opposed to merely making ads. The branded videos that go viral and gather all kinds of social activity–shares, comments, likes, forwards, etc.–are the ones that don’t look and feel like traditional commercials.

On my recent trip to Machinima headquarters, I got a chance to speak with CEO Allen DeBevoise.

Back in April I wrote about YouTube channel karminmusic, whose cover of Chris Brown's "Look At Me Now" had gone viral. That same video went on to land in the top ten most viewed videos of the entire 2011 year, but was far from the musical duo's only hit

Chronicle 's high view count for its various trailers online did not translate into a super-huge hit, but the movie performed well above expectations, as did the view-deprived Woman in Black .

This past January was a good one for Hollywood, although it goes to show that year-over-year comparisons for specific months is a pretty short-sighted way of looking at this particular business, which entirely relies on product.

This week on the Reel Web we cover a lot of new stories surrounding SOPA, PIPA, and especially Vimeo's stance on them.