User blog:Ceauntay/Rio Tops Friday Box Office; Scooby-Doo! The Movie To Match Against Scream 4

Following up on its international opening last weekend in which it posted the best opening numbers of the year, Rio appears to be on the way to winning the top spot on the domestic box office chart. The 3D animated family-friendly film set in Rio de Janeiro and featuring colorful birds looks to be on headed toward a solid $35 million opening, in addition to the $80 million it's earned internationally.

Meanwhile, the holdover ''Scooby-Doo! The Movie'' may be getting rid of half of audiences but some of them still stays making the film t continue to do well in theaters as it picked roughly $9 million for a day, and up to $234 million domestically, and $434 million worldwide. It should be going falling another 50 percent with another strong $25 million, for its $250 million total in its third weekend.

Also, The weekend's other wide release - Scream 4 - is faring okay, picking up about $8 million on its first day in theaters. The original Scream (1996) was made for just $15 million and collected a little over $6 million its opening weekend before going on to bring in $160+ million worldwide during its theatrical run. Scream 2 (1997) had a slightly higher budget and grossed $33 million its first three days of release, and Scream 3 (2000) did $34 million (with a budget of $40 million, just about the same as Scream 4). Scream 4 could gross $20-ish million this weekend, below the last two films and below pre-release estimates but not a disaster by any means. But a disaster sees that it will need to dome some business on Saturday and Sunday so it can pass above ''Scooby-Doo! The Movie'' so that it will not be coming in third place.

Universal's Easter Bunny film, Hop, is losing some family business to Rio, but is still managing to be in a tight race for 3rd place with the box office surprise hit, Insidious.