The Disney pop-culture juggernaut High School Musical series of films revived the U.S. movie box office this past weekend, opening with a heady $42 million take. That was the biggest opening weekend ever for a musical, far eclipsing the $27.8 million brought in by Mamma Mia! in its first three days this past summer.

The first two installments of the wholesome but energetic Disney film series originated on television on the company’s Disney Channel, and the decision to exploit that success by opening the third film in theaters proved a grand success.

The fifth installment of the Saw series of moral-dilemma horror films did quite well for their genre, bringing in about as much premiere weekend money as each of the last three films in the series.

The cop film Pride and Glory, also in its first weeked, finished fifth and brought in only $6.3 million despite a strong promotion effort and solid lead actors in Edward Norton and Colin Farrell. The grimness of yet another story about urban political corruption seems to have held its numbers down.

Opening in just a few theaters, Clint Eastwood’s The Changeling, starring Angelina Jolie in another film about urban political corruption, did well by bringing in more than $33,000 on average in each of the fifteen theaters in which it opened across the country. (For comparison, High School Musical brought in a healthy $11,593 per theater.) That bodes well for Eastwood’s film, which probably won’t be a big hit but will do well, thanks to the story having facets other than the political corruption angle.

Last week’s number one attraction, Max Payne, fell to third with an unspectacular $7.6 million.