The team over at Blue Sky Studios (and corporate partners Fox Animation Studios) had reason to celebrate this weekend as their latest toon, featherbrained comedy Rio, launched in first place at the box office. The movie, which is already a hit overseas ($169 million and counting), took in $40 million and even managed to boost the box office higher than last year for once. With American ankle biters now out of school for spring break, the movie should mop up in the coming week.
Scream 4, meanwhile, opened a little below expectations with $19.2 million. It remains to be seen whether word of mouth can keep it alive. The rest of the top five was composed from holdovers, with Hop doing surprisingly well in the face of fresh kiddie competition. The Easter Bunny comedy took in $11.1 million for third place. Inspirational true-life tale Soul Surfer also survived, holding on to fourth with $7.4 million. Fifth was Hanna, which ran off with $7.3 million.
Arthur, meanwhile, seemed to suffer from lacklustre word of mouth and fell to sixth place from third, earning $6.9 million. Horror movie Insidious dropped to seventh with $6.8 million and Source Code dipped one place to eighth with $6.3 million. Robert Redford’s latest, Abraham Lincoln assassination drama The Conspirator, launched strong in limited release with $3.9 million. Finally, at 10th, we find much-maligned comedy Your Highness spluttering along with $3.8 million and a $15.9 million total.
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