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Posted April 18, 2011 by Seth Paul in News
 
 

Weekend Box-Office: Rio Soars and Silences Scream 4

After two weeks on top, Hop finds itself lagging behind another family friendly CG film, and one decidedly much less friendly. Rio, the story of a macaw from Minnesota who finds himself in hot water when he visits Rio de Janeiro, made it to the top spot with $40 million. Not doing so well? The #2 spot, the debut of Scream 4 (or Scre4m, depending on your tolerance for numbers in titles), which didn’t even make half that total. Wes Craven returned to his half-slasher/half-self referential parody franchise with $19.3 million…no word on its budget data, though, so it’s hard to tell if this is a good start or a flop in the making. But, sitting comfortably at third with its basket already full, Hop has proven a winner at the box office as it loses its crown, earning $11.2 million.

As for the inspiring story of Soul Surfer, fourth place isn’t necessarily bad…it held the same place it did last week, only dropping a little bit of cash ($7.4 million) to do so. Oddly enough, Hanna dropped to fifth and a 40% loss of revenue, but picked up a handful of theaters along the way, making $7.3 million in its second week. Arthur still trails Hanna, this week in sixth place instead of third, the comedy remake earning $6.9 million.

Seventh place, however, goes to show that even though you may not hold the top rank, you could still be a winner; Insidious may have started off with a budget of only $1.5 million, but the ghostly terror is scaring up a crowd despite having the lowest drop-off of any film this week (almost tying for much bigger-budgeted Arthur with approximately $6.9 million) and earning nearly $36 million overall. Of course, sometimes not having the top rank does mean trouble…unlike Insidious, Your Highness has definitely fallen off the wall, sliding solidly into last place with a nearly 60% drop from last week, making slightly under $3.9 million in week two. The $50 million fantasy action comedy has not clicked with audiences or critics, and with only $16 million in the bank so far, it may not be quite the bomb Mars Needs Moms has become, but it certainly could be doing better.

Eighth place went to Source Code, which saw a profit with $6.3 million, which is more than can be said of Robert Redford’s The Conspirator, which debuted only slightly above Your Highness with $3.9 million. The story of a woman who may be wrongfully accused of involvement with Abraham Lincoln’s assassination opened to middling reviews and the smallest number of theaters of any film in the Top 10.

Weekend Box-Office (April 15 – April 17)

  1. Rio…$40 million
  2. Scream 4…$19.3 million
  3. Hop…$11.2 million
  4. Soul Surfer…$7.4 million
  5. Hanna…$7.3 million
  6. Arthur…$6.9 million
  7. Insidious…$6.9 million
  8. Source Code…$6.3 million
  9. The Conspirator…$3.9 million
  10. Your Highness…$3.9 million
Seth Paul

Seth Paul

When not failing to write novels and screenplays, box-office guru Seth writes humorous comedy tracks for films under the name "The One Man Band" that can be found at Rifftrax.com. Although, he has recently succeeded in writing the novella "Jack Alan and the Case of the Not-Exactly Rocket Scientists," available as an eBook on Amazon. He is also the English voice of Zak in "Zak McKracken: Between Time and Space."