Box Office Takes Flight

Dave here rounding up the box office while Nat's away thinking about nicer things.

Parrots took over from rabbits at the top of the box office this weekend, although the fact that it still isn't Easter might give that foppish British bunny a boost this week. Or did they bounce him out too early? Rio signals the coming of summer by scooping the biggest opening weekend of the year so far, besting Rango's $38.1 million. Meanwhile, Scream 4 came in a pale second place, not even making half of Rio's total; and Nat will be delighted to learn that Academy Award Winner Helen Hunt's Soul Surfer held steady as others tumbled around it. Maybe Ghostface might be able to take a stab at her as he falls past her next week?

Jesse Eisenberg doesn't usually look so emotional at the movies...

The Box Office (Actuals)

01 RIO new $39.2

02 SCREAM 4 new $19.3

03 HOP $11.2 (cumulative $82.6)

04 SOUL SURFER $7.4 (cumulative $20.0)

05 HANNA $7.3 (cumulative $23.3)

06 ARTHUR $6.9 (cumulative $22.3)

07 INSIDIOUS $6.7 (cumulative $35.9)

08 SOURCE CODE $6.3 (cumulative $37.0)

09 THE CONSPIRATOR new $3.9

10 YOUR HIGHNESS $3.9 (cumulative $16.0)

Disastrous numbers for the $45 million-budgeted Your Highness, crashing almost 60% in only its second week; but beautiful ones for the $1.5 million budget of Insidious, a bonefide hit that even looks likely to outgross horror rival Scream 4. Sometimes the little guys win!

And how the mighty Ghostface has fallen. Here's a usefulless comparison of the opening weekends for the whole series.

Of course, the original Scream started out small and ended up breaking $100 million, whereas the unfavorably received Scream 3 couped the biggest debut but faltered before $90 million. Those numbers are now just a forgotten dream for Scream 4, of course; how much do you think it'll end up grossing?

Lower down the chart, audiences shrugged at Atlas Shrugged (thanks Glenn), Win Win won a little extra on further expansion, and the biggest winner of the week was Italian thriller Double Hour, snatching the biggest per-screen average with $15,400... on its two screens. But what did you enjoy this weekend, in theatres or at home? I had a scream myself.

Box Office Zoology: The Bunny Still Reigns

Bunnies continued to be the favored animal at the weekend box office as Hop overperformed again. The cuddly bears of Arthur and the gaping wolf maw of Hanna split ticket buyers enough that Soul Surfer's shark was able to bite off not just a pretty girl's arm but a surprising chunk of the weekend box office. It was...wait for it... a zoo out there. hahahahhhaa unghhh. I'm here all week. Re: Soul Surfer, I understand that inspirational sports movies are a familiar comfort-food movie genre and I can live with that. But please don't let this mean Helen Hunt is back in the game. I beg you universe, I beg you!

Bears, and Wolves and Sharks. Oh my

The Box Office (Actuals)

01 HOP $21.2 (cumulative $67.7)
02 HANNA new $12.3
03 ARTHUR new $12.2  [my review]
04 SOUL SURFER new $10.6
05 INSIDIOUS $9.3 (cumulative $26.7)
06 YOUR HIGHNESS new $9.3
07 SOURCE CODE $8.6 (cumulative $28.2)
08 LIMITLESS $5.4 (cumulative $64.1)
09 DIARY OF A WIMPY KID $4.7 (cumulative $45.3)
10 THE LINCOLN LAWYER $4.2 (cumulative $46.1)

What does all this mean? That's for you to decide. When I try to understand the nation's moviegoers my eyes often bleed and blood attracts carnivorous animals. Why are people so eager to see an animated bunny rock star with the voice of Russell Brand? Why am I so obsessed with hating that (unseen) movie?

What did you see over the weekend, in theater or at home? (I keep a screening log over in the "reviews" section if you're curious about me.)

Box Office: The Source of that Insidious Hopping

Fact #1: I love Easter, bunnies, Easter bunnies, chocolate bunnies, coloring eggs.
Fact #2: Seeing Hop would ruin the upcoming holiday entirely for me because nothing makes me gag harder than animated CGI characters doing hip anachronistic things like oh, I don't know dreaming of playing in a rock n roll band. Just typing this out gave me salmonella. Mainstream moviegoers felt otherwise throwing their hardearned cash at the British wabbit. It had the best opening weekend since Rango. Where were these crowds when The Rock was doing Tooth Fairy?

01. HOP $37.5 new
02. SOURCE CODE $14.8 new
03. INSIDIOUS $13.2 new
04. DIARY OF A WIMPY KID: RODRICK RULES $10.0 (cumulative: $38.1)
05. LIMITLESS $9.3 (cumulative: $55.5)

Poor Patrick. Things never end well for him at the movies.

Hop's success frightens me and the only possible joy that can come from it is that maybe someone will give James Marsden another plum comic gig like the one in Enchanted.  I would however totally want to see this week's chart topper if it were about Jake Gyllenhaal and the Easter Bunny ibeing thrust back in time repeatedly until they saved Patrick Wilson from demonic possessions in The Source of That Insidious Hopping. Don't you wish you could sometimes watch three movies at once?

Per Screen Average Which movies were you most likely to find crowds at? I've eliminated all the specialty IMAX stuff and everything that's only at one theater because "come on" and here's what'cha got.

01. HOP $10,000ish
02. IN A BETTER WORLD $8,000ish (The Danish Oscar winner is finally on a few screens. Weird to wait an entire month post Oscar win to debut.)
03. WIN WIN $7,000ish (cumulative $1.9 million. Big jump in screen count this past weekend. I almost went today but my friend shifted plans.)
04. JANE EYRE $6,700ish  (cumulative $3.4 million. Still going strong. Yay)
05. INSIDIOUS $5,500ish (and this type of movie is always better with a crowd)

What did you see over the weekend? I was entertaining so I didn't get out. Although we did watch the SXSW winner Weekend which was fairly strong as indies go. It definitely knew what it wanted to be and didn't get distracted at being that and that's always a huge plus.

Predix: Supporting Actor and The Matter of Young Leads

Jim Broadbent as Dennis ThatcherWhen it comes to blindfolded Oscar predictions, almost nothing beats the supporting categories. I have this vague fantasy of time travel and returning to propose all 10 supporting acting nominees correctly one April to reams of laughter from the internet. They can be so hard to see coming for so many reasons including: adaptations sometimes lean on different characters than the novels or plays that birthed them, ensembles are tricky because you don't know who will win "best in show" reviews, one lead films are tricky because the huge role at the center (The Iron Lady, J. Edgar) sometimes end up sucking up all the oxygen and other times have coattails. Then there's the small matter of Oscar being more diverse aesthetically when it comes to supporting work. Here is where comedy, horror, sci-fi, fantasy  and even comic book movies (Dick Tracy, The Dark Knight) can show up even though they rarely if ever get play in lead categories.

Kenneth Branagh? Christoph Waltz? Philip Seymour Hoffman x 2? Viggo Mortensen x 2? Armie Hammer or Josh Lucas? Ben Kingsley? Christopher Plummer? Jim Broadbent -- his Iron Lady performance already has tongues (and fingers) wagging -- Richard E Grant or Anthony Head? Nick Nolte? Brad Pitt? You can drive yourself crazy thinking about all the possibilities. Maybe you have?

The first predictions for 2011

NEW TOPIC: This is as good a year as any, I assume, to prove my frequent statements about Oscar's double standards with gender. There are at least three very high profile films with young male leads this year: HUGO CABRET (Asa Butterfield is 14 years old), WAR HORSE (Jeremy Irvine is ??? years old), and SUPER 8 (Joel Courtney is ??? years old).

Asa Butterfield, Jeremy Irvine and Joel Courtney

If you've ever doubted my assertion about this double standard -- some people have objected to the statements -- watch how these performances are treated this year while keeping in mind how Hailee Steinfeld's work was greeted in True Grit as if the heavens or the red sea had parted. The media, critics and Oscar voters are quick to shove aside experience and accomplishment in women when a "fresh player" enters but not so with male actors. My prediction: at least one of these three does work on par or better than Hailee's and doesn't get anything like her traction. Watch and see.

Obviously there are exceptions, as there are to every rule: There was no denying Haley Joel Osment's gift in The Sixth Sense (1999) although he did get demoted to Supporting and lost to somebody who already had an Oscar, and Justin Henry won a nomination at 8 (!) for Kramer Vs. Kramer. In both cases the films were absolute sensations at the box office. Dramas no longer explode with audiences like Kramer vs. Kramer did but in today's dollars its box office haul was truly insane. We're talking a domestic haul closer to the latest Harry Potter than a True Grit or King's Speech. In other words, even Oscar doesn't ignore the zeitgeist.

BOB: Sucker Punching Dead Horses

Today's Box Office Blather is short, though hardly sweet. The weekend had only two wide openings which fought it out for two markets: the family and the fanboys. Though girls ruled and boys drooled on Friday when Sucker Punch triumphed, family-market films always grow over opening weekends rather than fade like normal movies.

Carla Gugino, Jena Malone, Abbie Cornish, Emily Browning, Jamie Chung and Vanessa Hudgens at the Sucker Punch premiere

So the weekend went to Wimpy Kids rather than Violent Girls.

01. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules $23.7 new
02. Sucker Punch $19 new
03. Limitless $15 (cumulative: $41.1)
04. The Lincoln Lawyer $10.7 (cumulative: $28.7)
05. Rango $9.7 million (cumulative: $106.3)

Limitless and Lincoln held well in week 2 indicating that people who saw them last week maybe didn't regret their ticket purchases. Rango is now the top grosser of 2011, a title it seems likely to hold until the end of May when Johnny Depp will overthrow himself by way of Pirates #4. (Sigh) Unless Thor gets deified by general audiences or Jane Eyre busts out of her bodice on a record breaking 6,321 screens... all of them sold out for the rest of the summer. (Sorry, fever dream on account of the feverishly Fassbending podcast. But wouldn't it be great if box office were THAT impossible to predict? Hypothetical question. The answer is yes.)

What did you see this weekend? Besides Mildred Pierce, I mean.

Finally, in Shamelessly Beating Dead Horses news: the PG-13 version of The King's Speech opens this Friday. Begone naughty fuck word, you have no power here! The King's Profanity has been redacted. Oscar campaigns don't pay for themselves, people. Although, the $15 million dollar budgeted film has already earned $361 million worldwide so now they're just being greedy fuckers.