There was another record-breaker at theaters this weekend, and it didn't involve men in bat suits.

Mamma Mia!, the ABBA-inspired film starring Meryl Streep, quietly enjoyed the strongest debut for a musical. If estimates hold, Mamma Mia!'s $27.6 million opening will squeak by Hairspray, which set the mark last year with $27.5 million.

"Certainly, The Dark Knight tide lifted all boats," says Jeff Bock of Exhibitor Relations. "But Mamma Mia! pulled off quite a feat, because they did it with very little press."

According to distributor Universal Pictures, 75% of the Mamma Mia! audience was female, 64% of them 30 and older.

"You feel a little guilty bragging when Dark Knight was so huge, but we're proud," the studio's Nikki Rocco says. "Older women are saying, 'If there are movies for us, we'll be out there, too.' "

According to the May 4th Reuters story, Iron Man's launch kicked off the summer movie season "with estimated weekend ticket sales of $100.75 million...The tally far exceeded expecations...Iron Man's U.S-Canadian haul fell just shy of $114.8 million grossed by Spider-Man...That tally stands as the biggest domestic opening ever for a non-sequel film".

Also from the Reuters story: "It's the perfect way to start the new studio, to blast it off," Marvel Studios Chairman David Maisel told Reuters. "We're fortunate to have this powerful Marvel brand which means something for moviegoers around the world."

Nabbr worked closely with Paramount to execute on their social media strategy, syndicating the Ironman widget on the Nabbr Network and delivering 28,443,997 views and thousands of embeds in a two week pre-release campaign.

CULVER CITY, Calif., March 11, 2008 – Blackjack fans on MySpace looking forward to the March 28, 2008 release of 21, the high stakes action adventure from Columbia Pictures, can hone their skills and play for individual and college bragging rights with the new 21-themed blackjack widget, available now. A widget is a piece of software a user can grab and put on their own personal website.

In addition, users can enter the 21 Beat The House Sweepstakes for a chance to win a casino-style blackjack table, $1,000 in cash, and other valuable prizes.

Commenting on the announcement, Dwight Caines, executive vice president, worldwide digital marketing strategy, said, "Every year, millions of people travel to Las Vegas in the hopes of winning big. Most leave town licking their wounds and counting their losses, but 21 is inspired by the true story of a team of players from M.I.T., real geniuses, who used their powers and skills to beat Vegas at its own game. With this widget, users can experience the excitement of blackjack and become experts in Vegas' only beatable game."

The blackjack widget is skinned to promote 21. When MySpace members register to play, they will also identify their colleges (or alma mater). As they win games, they will earn points not only for the individual leaderboard, but also for a college leaderboard, so players will compete simultaneously for bragging rights among their peers and their schools.

The widget was built by Nabbr, a company that creates interactive widgets for premium content owners and distributes them to millions of users on the Nabbr Network.

Nabbr partnered with Universal Studios to deliver over 10,000,000 video views and thousands of embedded widgets on MySpace, Facebook, Bebo and the social web in just two weeks, engaging millions of active Gen Y social web users who created an earlier positive buzz for "SuperHero Movie" resulting in a successful opening weekend.

After being bitten by a genetically altered dragonfly, high school loser Rick Riker develop superhuman abilities like incredible strength and armored skin. Rick decides to use his new powers for good and becomes a costumed crime fighter known as "The Dragonfly." However, standing in the way of his destiny is the villainous Lou Landers. After an experiment gone wrong, Lou develops the power to steal a person's life force and in a dastardly quest for immortality becomes the supervillain, "The Hourglass." With unimaginable strength, unbelievable speed and deeply uncomfortable tights, will the Dragonfly be able to stop the sands of The Hourglass and save the world? More importantly, will we stop laughing long enough to notice?

Nov. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Nabbr, the Internet company that helps distribute videos to Web sites including MySpace, signed deals with the four largest record companies to use their music and share advertising revenue.

Each week Nabbr will release 10 new music videos to a network of 160 sites that distributes content to social networking pages including MySpace and Facebook, New York-based Nabbr said today in an e-mailed statement.

Music companies are seeking to increase digital revenue and promote their artists online as compact disc sales decline. Nabbr has deals with Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group Corp. and EMI Group Ltd.

Nabbr has completed three rounds of financing managed by investment bank Allen & Co. Investors include former Paramount Pictures Chief Executive Officer Jonathan Dolgen and former AOL executive Michael Wolfson, Nabbr said in the statement. The company has promoted recordings from artists including Justin Timberlake and the Jonas Brothers and movies such as "Good Luck Chuck."

"The major labels are paying us to promote their content," Mike More, 41, founder and chief executive, said in an interview.

Nabbr also has agreements with independent labels including CBS Corp.'s CBS Records and S-Curve Records, whose founder Steve Greenberg is chairman of Nabbr.

Nabbr uses a network of sites including whateverlife.com that users of social networking sites visit to obtain content for their profile pages. MySpace is owned by News Corp. while Facebook is closely held.

Sales of compact discs have dropped almost 20 percent this year through Nov. 11, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Universal Music, based in Santa Monica, California, is owned by Paris-based Vivendi SA. New York-based Sony BMG Music Entertainment is a venture of Sony Corp. and Bertelsmann AG. EMI is owned by London-based Terra Firma Capital Partners Ltd.

The major record labels are hoping a new technology - which allows people with a page on major social-networking sites to display a rotating line-up of music videos - is the answer to eroding sales. The technology company bringing the video technology to market, Nabbr, signed a deal last week to get further financing from investment bank Allen & Co., record label S-Curve and a handful of entertainment industry veterans. Nabbr's video player reaches more than 40 million people. Allen & Co., which has provided Nabbr with roughly 90 percent of its funding so far, is the majority owner with a 40 percent stake, while S-Curve Records and its founder Steve Greenberg together control about 10 percent. Other investors in Nabbr, which is currently out raising additional funds, include former Paramount Pictures CEO Jonathan Dolgen and PrimaryWave Music Publishing founder Larry Mestel. Nabbr this week will introduce a new music player that will stream 10 new music videos per week to its affiliate net work.

Working with Nabbr We the kings surged ahead of the competition, earning a majority of the votes on the MTVU freshmen contest in a field of 5. Dynamically updated every day with fresh new footage on the road, engaging fans with contests and shoutouts from the band, We The Kings created a viral marketing channel on the social web, with over 13 thousand media rich widgets embedded on fans pages throughout the social web.

"On the first day that our nabbr widgits went live, our artists' web and social networking traffic increased by a factor of 10 and has increased substantially from that point in subsequent weeks. Nabbr has also been crucial in driving our early sales at digital retail. We are always in search of truly effective online tools that will be useful in building fan bases for our roster of new and developing artists, and nabbr has more than exceeded our expectations on that front."
Larry Jenkins President CBS Records

Lionsgate Films' Good Luck Chuck debuted at #2 its opening weekend, grossing $14 million during the three day span. This opening for the film, starring Jessica Alba and Dane Cook, is an enormous success for Nabbr, whose Good Luck Chuck widget was played over 26 million times in a four week span. Nabbr is also happy to report that Good Luck Chuck was the number one most talked-about film on Yahoo!

Last year, Steve Greenberg, the former president of Columbia Records and now the head of indie label S-Curve Records, witnessed the power of Whateverlife. Greenberg discovered Joss Stone, produced the Hanson brothers, and helped make Baha Men's "Who Let the Dogs Out" an unofficial sports anthem. Last year, he decided to promote Jonas Brothers, an unknown pop trio, online instead of on radio. He turned to Nabbr, a company that had developed a viral widget, a small desktop application that plays videos and can be easily shared with other sites. It's like "a music poster on a bedroom wall," says Mike More, Nabbr's CEO.

The widget made its Internet debut on Whateverlife. While surfing MySpace for leads, More had noticed how many Jonas Brothers fans used Whateverlife layouts. In less than two months, 60,000 fans transferred the Jonas Brothers' three-part video from Whateverlife to their MySpace pages, in effect becoming 60,000 new distribution points.

Bratz was one of the top ten grossing movies its opening weekend, a smashing success for Lionsgate Films and Nabbr. The Bratz movie widget, featured across Nabbr's extensive platform, was played over 20 million times in a two week period and embedded onto over 16 thousand personal profile pages. The widget's widespread popularity added to the movie buzz, and Bratz was one of the top ten most popular movies in Yahoo! searches during its debut weekend.

Amy Winehouse's album Back to Black hit #1 on iTunes' top R&B albums. Her smash single "Rehab" played in Nabbr's widget and was embedded onto thousands of fans' profile pages within weeks. The single hit #9 on Billboard's Hot 100.

Nabbr got Zomba artist to #1 on iTunes' top album charts with his second solo album FutureSex/LoveSounds (2006). "What Goes Around... Comes Around" is the third single from the album, and was featured in a Nabbr widget along with Timberlake's smash hits "SexyBack" and "My Love". The widget has been played over 9 million times and embedded onto thousands of profile pages, and "What Goes Around... Comes Around" became Timberlake's third consecutive number-one single on the Billboard Hot 100.