http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/w ... lps-179272

Twentieth Century Fox’s Rio outperformed expectations in its domestic launch, grossing an estimated $40 million from 3,826 theaters to help break the long-running box office slump. Worldwide, the 3D toon has soared to $169 million in its first 12 days.

Domestic box office revenues were up 12% from the same weekend a year ago, the first gain since before Christmas.

Rio, a sizeable victory for Vanessa Morrison’s Fox Animation Studios and Blue Sky Studios, received an A CinemaScore in North America and is the biggest opening of the year. It’s also the best opening for a G-rated toon since Toy Story 3. On Saturday, Rio was up 65%. The movie is poised to do great midweek business, since kids are out of school for spring break.

Aiding the box office revenue spike was Dimension Films’ Scream 4, which grossed an estimated $19.2 million from 3,305 theaters. While Dimension was hoping for an opening in the mid-$20 million range, Scream 4 still enjoyed a solid start, coming in No. 2 for the weekend.

A trio of strong holdovers claimed the next three spots on the box office chart -- TriStar/FilmDistrict’s Soul Surfer, Focus Features’ smart thriller Hanna and FilmDistrict’s micro-budgeted horror film Insidious.

Soul Surfer grossed an estimated $7.4 million from 2,214 locations for a cume of $20 million in its first 10 days. The Bethany Hamilton biopic fell only 30%.

Hanna, from Joe Wright, fell 41% to an estimated $7.3 million for a cume of $23.3 million in its first 10 days.

From Paranormal Activity activities Jason Blum and Oren Peli, sleeper hit Insidious fell a narrow 25% in its third weekend, grossing an estimated $6.9 million for a stellar cume of $36 million.

Warner Bros.’ Arthur continued to disappoint in its second weekend, tying with Insidious at $6.9 million. The comedy’s cume is $22.3 million its first 10 days.

Univeral’s R-rated comedy Your Highness fell badly in its second weekend, declining 57% to an estimated $4.1 million from 2,772 locations for a cume of $16.1 million.

The third new film of the frame, Roadside Attractions’ historical drama The Conspirator, from director Robert Redford and opening in only 706 locations, performed as hoped for in grossing roughly $3.7 million to $3.8 million, coming in No. 10 or No. 11.

Well, at least there was an increase over last year! Very good for Rio. Scream 4 is of course disappointing but...oh well. I'm still hoping it doesn't completely fall off the face of the earth.

Nice holds for Soul Surfer, Hanna, Source Code and Insidious, which is turning into quite the sleeper hit.

Strong for The Conspirator considering the low profile and older audience.

The streak has been broken after 22 weekends! Even if Scream massively disappointed, there is some good news!

Insidious beating Scream's total could be the shocker of the year imo.

Why don't you check BoxOffice, they had all the numbers an hour ago?

http://www.boxoffice.com/statistics/bo_ ... 2011-04-17

Good call!

Saturday was pretty good for movies. All the movies had decent upticks yesterday which is the weekend managed to go ahead of last year. Guess with summers coming we will see this trend a bit more with Saturdays having bigger increases.

So disappointing for SCREAM 4 . And it had a big drop on Saturday. Makes me sad.

Amazing for THE CONSPIRATOR.

A lot of really solid holds this weekend. Especially impressive is INSIDIOUS.

Studio spin on Scream:

"Would we have liked to have done more? Yeah, absolutely, but I don't think anyone was expecting $30 million," said Erik Lomis, head of distribution for the Weinstein Co. "But I think it's a solid opening, particularly given how the films have been performing lately in the marketplace. R-rated films have been having a tougher time."

An 11-year hiatus since "Scream 3" may have created a disconnect between the franchise and the typically young horror crowd. Just 54 percent of the audience was under 25, a segment that typically accounts for about 75 percent of horror fans, Lomis said.

Weinstein executives are hoping word of mouth among those younger viewers will bring in new fans and carry the movie along in the coming weeks. That's what happened with the original "Scream," which opened with just $6.4 million in 1996 but became a $100 million word-of-mouth hit.

Summer has weaker Saturday increases and one data set does not equate a trend.

Well as long as they're not too upset . They did greenlight a Piranha sequel, so maybe they'll order up another helping of SCREAM. If they keep the budget relatively small I don't see a reason not to do another. They need a better release date.


Maybe a lot of the people following SCREAM on Twitter simply couldn't get in to the movie because they weren't old enough. They were very strict at my theater about not letting anyone under 17 in.

Overall I don't think this weekend was too bad at all. I mean atleast there was somewhat of a increase over last year eventhough alot more was expected out of both Rio and Scream 4. Atleast Rio cracked $40M and hopefully it stays like that when the actuals come in. It's still good for a $130M+ run with good WOM and no other big animated flicks coming out until summer. Scream on the other hand dissapointed big time, but if it can atleast have good enough legs to get to $45 -$50M it won't be considered a complete flop. However, that's going to be hard considering Fast Five comes out in 2 weeks and if it really did skew mostly under 25 like reports say it's going to lose alot of it's audience. Hopefully it makes as much money as possible before then.

I suppose 54% is technically "mostly under 25," but the norm for horror movies is a much higher percentage than that. So it is skewing older.

It sucked, it's finished.. Let it go

I can "let it go" just fine, whatever that means. Unlike you, I'm not harping on a dead horse with irrational thinking and incomprehensible spelling because of some film you've decided to dedicate your hatred to that particular week.

At least Scream 4 did have the highest horror or R rated opening since Paranormal 2. Yeah I know the spinning is getting old. I'm done.

Anyone know what CinemaScore grade ELM STREET had last Spring?

C+

Well at least SCREAM 4 had a better grade . After its initial huge drop (some of which can be attributed to facing IRON MAN 2 in its second weekend), NIGHTMARE actually had semi-OK legs. Maybe SCREAM can follow suit with even better ones. At least it doesn't face some huge blockbuster in its second weekend, so there's really no way it sees as big a drop. And it benefits from the holiday weekend.

To be fair, BKB was the only one to call Scream 4 severly underwhelming. I know you two have a sordid "history" but this is about box office, not interpersonal relationships, which is why I think BKB deserves a little less animosity and maybe even some props for being right on the money this time.

I hate to be cliched but a broken clock is right twice a day.

Yeah, BKB wasn't right because he saw something none of us did and it was a super good call based on sound Reasoning. Anyone will eventually get a random guess or two right. He whiffs at least 4 times out of 5, hitting one is just playing the law of numbers.

It's because of Easter falling in April this year. I suspect the downtrend will continue in May.