Weekend Box Office (04/24/11): Rio holds strong, Madea and Water for Elephants open well on Easter weekend.

It was another 'everybody wins' at the box office this Easter weekend, as every major new release opened at or above expectations, while most of the older movies had strong holds. 20th Century Fox's animated adventure Rio was number once again, as it fell just 32% for a $26.3 million weekend. The $90 million Blue Sky production has so far amassed $80 million domestically, while already grossing $286 million mark worldwide. It has already surpassed the $234 million worldwide haul of Rango to become 2011's top international grosser, if only for a week or two. The success of Rio exemplified the hidden good news in this first 1/3 of 2011. While others complained about the lack of massive opening weekends and the smaller cumulative weekend box office compared to last year, there was a flood of comparatively cheaper films that had slightly smaller opening weekends but displayed solid legs all season long. Money is money, and studios will take it over the first weekend or over the first ten days or so either way. Besides, considering that the theaters themselves get a larger cut (50/50 vs. around 30/70) after the first few weekends, you can bet that they'd greatly prefer smaller opening weekends but leggier exhibitions.

Weekend Box Office (04/17/11): Rio opens big, Scream 4 underwhelms.

As expected, 20th Century Fox's Rio followed its stunning $55 million overseas debut last weekend with a $39.2 million domestic opening weekend here. Rio is officially the biggest opening weekend thus far in 2011. The film comes from Blue Sky Animation, the Fox-owned animation house that has consistently delivered since the original Ice Age back in March of 2002. This is the second-weakest debut for the studio, after the $36 million debut of Robots in March of 2005, but Robots, Horton Hears a Who ($45 million opening weekend), and the Ice Age pictures weren't dealing with being the fifth computer-animated film to open in just over two months.

Weekend Box Office (04/10/11): Hop stays on top, four new releases cannibalize each other, Insidious pulls stunning hold.

For the second weekend in a row, Universal's Hop was the number one film of the weekend. The Easter Bunny animated epic dropped 42% in its second weekend, grossing $21.6 million. That's a bit heavy for an animated film, but the lack of school for many kids has meant decent midweek showings, draining the 'must see on the weekend' factor. Regardless, the $63 million-budgeted film has already grossed $68 million in the first ten days. If it can fend off Rio next weekend (which is basically being sold by Fox as 'Angry Birds: the Movie'), it positions itself for a strong fourth weekend, which is of course Easter itself. Frankly, it will be fun to watch, as agnostic, atheist, and/or not-Christian families will likely check out Hop over that holiday weekend, while the more overtly Christian families will theoretically opt for Tyler Perry's Madea's Big Happy Family. This is another big win for Illumination and a solid hit for Universal. $100 million seems guaranteed and beyond that is mainly a matter of demo competition (a bunch of kid-friendly films over the next month) and whether it can keep screens as summer starts. As for those who read last week's roundup, I did see the film that Sunday, and it's relatively mediocre but utterly harmless. My three-year old enjoyed it, which counts for something, and it does make an effort to go in a different direction than many other talking-animal films (too bad it literally gives away the ending in the first scene of the film... WHY???).