Film fans head for Rio, shrug over new Scream
MOVIE fans are going to Rio in big numbers, but they’re not quite screaming over the latest instalment of a horror-comedy franchise.
The 20th Century Fox animated family film Rio, featuring the voices of Anne Hathaway and Jesse Eisenberg, led the weekend box office with a healthy $40-million debut, according to studio estimates yesterday.
It was the best debut so far this year, topping another animated comedy, Rango, by about $2 million.
The slasher comedy Scream 4, released by the Weinstein Co banner Dimension Films, opened at No 2 with just $19.3 million. That’s a fraction of the business for the previous two sequels, which both debuted at over $30 million more than a decade ago.
Business finally climbed for Hollywood, which has been in a prolonged slide. Revenues rose for only the second time since last November, coming in at $134 million, up 12 per cent compared to the same weekend last year, when Kick-Ass led with $19.8 million.
“I’m going to be so bold as to say this may be the beginning of the turnaround,” said Paul Dergarabedian, box-office analyst for Hollywood.com. “Summer’s almost here and it’s the most important movie-going season. It couldn’t be coming at a better time.”
After two weekends in the No 1 spot, Russell Brand’s Easter bunny tale Hop slipped to third place with $11.2 million. Released by Universal, Hop raised its total to $82.6 million.
The weekend’s other new wider release, director Robert Redford’s Lincoln-assassination drama The Conspirator, premiered at No 9 with $3.9 million. The movie stars Robin Wright and James McAvoy in a courtroom tale of a woman accused of aiding Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth.
Released by Roadside Attractions, The Conspirator played in narrower release of 707 theatres, roughly one-fifth the cinema count for the weekend’s top three movies.
