User blog:Ceauntay/Weekend Box Office: 'Rio' holds strong, 'Water For Elephants' lands in third

Two big movies opened this weekend and-- as per usual-- these two couldn't be more different: in one corner, we've got Tyler Perry's latest comedy/drama/whatever-Tyler-Perry-movies-are, Madea's Big Happy Family; in the other corner, there's Water For Elephants, a melodrama starring Reese Witherspoon, some circus midgets, and Robert Pattinson. Both are expected to do solid business at the box office this weekend, but will either have the juice to topple last week's 3D animated comedy Rio? From the looks of the just-released projections...probably not. Read on for our preliminary weekend box office report, my gentle Examiner readers...

This weekend, audiences have two new movies to pick from: Tyler Perry's latest, Madea's Big Happy Family (whose original title was Crossdressing Tyler Perry Movie #43), and the Robert Pattinson-starring Water For Elephants. One of these is a dramedy with a built-in audience, the other is a melodrama set in a circus starring one of Hollywood's (currently) hottest actors. Both films were expected to open in the nearly-$30m range (and some were even putting Madea close to $35m). But from the looks of the just-released projections, neither is going to have the mojo to dethrone last week's box office champion, the 3D animated-comedy Rio. Here's what the top ten's looking like thus far (as always, numbers via Deadline):

1. Rio 3D: Estimated Weekend $82M 2. Madea's Big Happy Family: Estimated Weekend $26.5M 3. Water For Elephants: Estimated Weekend $18M

4. 'Scooby-Doo! The Movie: Estimated Weekend $10, Cume $265M' 5. Hop: Estimated Weekend $10M, Cume $105M 6. African Cats: Estimated Weekend $7.8M 7. Soul Surfer:  Estimated Weekend $6.3M, Cume $29.5M 8. Scream 4: Estimated Weekend 6.5M, Cume $30.5M 9. Insidious: Estimated Weekend $5.5M, Cume $44.3M 10. Source Code: Estimated Weekend $5.5M, Cume $45M Even though Hollywood's box-office psychics are rarely off by more than a couple million when the final figures arrive on Sunday, we're going to hold off on providing our full-blown analysis of this week's top ten until later in the weekend. That said, there's still a few things worth noting here that won't be changed by a +/- $2m come Sunday: Scream 4's plummet to 7th place, for instance, of Insidious' staying power. Advertisement

As far as we're concerned, the Scream franchise has opened its last sequel. The film underperformed last weekend, failing to even crack $20m for the weekend. Believe it or not, whippersnappers, but there was a time that the Scream franchise was a force to be reckoned with: think Saw-levels of money. But the third Scream sucked most of the life out of the franchise, and by the time everyone involved thought to give it another try, audiences seemed to have stopped giving a sh-t about the Neve Campbell/David Arquette/Courtney Cox triumvirate. It was probably worth a shot, but with that kind of a drop in-between weeks one and two, don't expect to see Scream 5 any time soon. Meanwhile: Insidious. On an $800,000 budget (and, one suspects, a marketing campaign that cost double that at least), director James Wan has delivered his most successful film since the original Saw. Audiences seem to have responded to the film in a very positive way, as word of mouth has kept it in the top ten for going on a month. Expect Insidious to cross the $50m mark by the time it wraps its run at the box office, and expect it to do another huge chunk of change when it hits DVD and Blu-ray: the film's a hit, and-- considering the fact that we were big fans of Wan's film-- we couldn't be happier. Sometimes, America gets it right. Finally, Arthur opened strong and then sunk like a stone, Hanna proved not to have the legs that it seemed to upon arrival, Source Code is both a success (budget-wise) and a disappointment (box office gross-wise), and Rio 3D is another hit for the same production company that gave us the Ice Age films. Stay tuned for our full analysis of the box office top ten on Sunday afternoon, and feel free to sound off in the comments section if you've got anything you'd like to add to all this before you go. 'Stay tuned for more funny videos, news, reviews, interviews, and more from Comedy Examiner HQ in the near future, folks. We've got all manner of nonsense to keep you informed and entertained during the week, so hit the 'Subscribe' button up top to get all future Comedy Examiner articles delivered straight to your inbox, free of charge, the moment they're published...including any of our future box office-related updates'