Who needs spies and volcanoes when you have LEGO bricks? That seems to be the sentiment shared among movie goers as The Lego Movie lead box offices for the third weekend straight.

Warner Bros. animated 3D film earned an estimated $31.45 million, towering above its opening weekend competition. Relativity Media's spy film 3 Days to Kill, starring Kevin Costner, didn't come close to toppling the LEGO film, raking in only $12 million. Sony's ancient disaster movie "Pompeii" came in third, with $10 million.

The Lego movie has been a massive success for Warner Bros., on ready on track to become the highest earning non-sequel animated film not produced by Pixar or Disney. Warner Bros. has already announced a sequel in the works for 2017.

"Lego is significantly overperforming our wildest expectations," said Jeff Goldstein, Warner Bros. executive vice president of theatrical distribution. "It's moved way beyond a family-based film to include tweens, young adults and older adults as well. It's just funny."

To what do they owe this success? Box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian of Rentrak weighs in:

"It's been really tough for any of the newcomers to displace 'Lego,' They had such a great release date that put them in this perfect position to dominate the marketplace for several weeks. For 'Lego' to earn $31 million in its third weekend, that would be impressive in its first weekend for any film in the first quarter."

The film was also aided by a great critical response, holding a 96 percent on the film review aggregator, Rotten Tomatoes. Competing films 3 Days to Kill and Pompeii, currently hold a 27 percent and 25 percent rating respectively, well into the site's "rotten" range.

LEGO's box office dominance also says something about the brand. Kids love legos, but so do the teens and adults who grew up playing with the construction blocks. LEGO's recent venture into the video game market proved a great success and now it looks like its move to the big screen will follow suit.