Did you stay at home and color eggs, church it up, socialize, or hit the movies this weekend? Or maybe a little of all four? I did the latter two. I was a bit worried when I walked into an empty theater for Water for Elephants (but it did fill halfway up). Here's the top ten.
Easter Weekend Box Office
01 RIO $26.3 (cumulative $80.8)
The birds have now taken over for the bunny.
02 MADEA'S BIG HAPPY FAMILY new $25.0
03 WATER FOR ELEPHANTS new $16.8
04 HOP $12.1 (cumulative $100.2)
05 SCREAM 4 $7.0 (cumulative $31.0)
06 AFRICAN CATS new $6.0
07 SOUL SURFER $5.4 (cumulative $28.5)
08 HANNA $5.2 (cumulative $31.7)
09 INSIDIOUS $5.2 (cumulative $44.0)
10 SOURCE CODE $5.0 (cumulative $44.6)
Obviously Tyler Perry will be making Madea movies till he's in the grave since people never stop showing up once he puts on those big dresses. The debut for Water for Elephants seems worrisome (truth: we always hope that epic period romances do well since like musicals they seem in short dead-genre supply) but they somehow kept their production costs way down so they'll be fine in the long haul. Movie budgets so rarely make visible sense on screen. This one only costs $38 million despite being a handsome period piece with wild animals and three stars? Meanwhile Black Swan costs half of that and looked downrright spectacular while some movies -- most movies actually -- cost more than $38 and they don't look as expensive. Guess it all depends on who the producers are handing the money to, right?
We don't like to neglect the films in limited release so let's check in on how films that have never been in wide are doing. That top five goes like so.
01 WIN WIN $1.1 (cumulative $6.6)
02 ATLAS SHRUGGED PT. 1 $.8 (cumulative $3.0)
Apparently if you savage this one in a review people get pissed. So given the 6% on Rotten Tomatoes there are a lot of pissed people out there. I totally believe this as my Dad is about as conservative as they come and worships Ayn Rand.
03 JANE EYRE $.7 (cumulative $7.8)
04 OF GODS AND MEN $.1 (cumulative $3.2)
05 I AM $.1 (cumulative $.5)
Sadly both Win Win and Jane Eyre which have been quite well received by arthouse auds probably won't expand that much further since they're both slowing down. One hopes that Jane Eyre will stick around until X-Men: Mutant Babies opens and some brave new Fassbender fans get curious. The highest per screen average went to Canada's Oscar nominated INCENDIES which nabbed $18,000ish from each of its screens. Alas, it was only on three screens.
What did you see?
Tuesday, April 26, 2011 at 10:00AM 
On Easter The Boyfriend and I had brunch with two of our favorite people and their daughters. Like so many other little girls (and boys), they love Disney Princess movies so I had to ask the eldest, who is suddenly chatty, which was her favorite? The question rendered her completely shy, like nobody had ever asked her to embrace her inner film critic (though I find this hard to believe since her dad is a huge movie buff and awesome enough to school me on occassion). I had given up hope of an answer, reverting my attention to the food when she shouted "CINDERELLA" at the top of her lungs over her waffles. "But why" I say? This answer came much more swiftly, like it was the silliest question any adult had ever asked her.
