Film Weekend Per Total
1 Rio $26,800,000 (-31.7%) $6,976 $81,261,000
2 Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Big Happy Family $25,750,000 $11,254 $25,750,000
3 Water for Elephants $17,500,000 $6,212 $17,500,000
4 Hop $12,461,000 (+16.3%) $3,446 $100,500,000
5 Scream 4 $7,154,000 (-61.7%) $2,159 $31,158,000
6 African Cats $6,400,000 $5,246 $6,400,000
7 Soul Surfer $5,600,000 (-23.0%) $2,500 $28,664,000
8 Insidious $5,384,000 (-20.2%) $2,528 $44,178,000
9 Hanna $5,277,000 (-27.5%) $2,214 $31,718,000
10 Source Code $5,063,000 (-18.5%) $2,143 $44,664,000

This just in: A cure for the common STD.

Rio held the top slot, and is now assured doing over $100 domestic. Though part of those numbers might be an Easter bounce, the international numbers have been strong (it’s already done $286 Million globally), and it’s got some time until Kung Fu Panda 2 hits (Hoodwinked 2? sure). So let’s say $130-$150 domestic and call it good.

With Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Big Happy Family, this will be the lowest opening of the Madea (headlining) cycle. The first opened to $30 Million and the second did $41 opening weekend. It’s been two years since the last Madea, and in the interim Perry directed three movies. Tyler Perry’s I Can Do Bad All By Myself (also with Madea), Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married Too?, and For Colored Girls. His last couple pictures have cost $20 Million to make – and there’s no reason to think this would be more expensive – so this film should go into profit as it should come close to doubling its opening. Any thoughts of Perry on the wane are not all that scientific. As Perry has a big audience of Church-goers, perhaps this holiday weekend was a bad choice for the movie. The film is under-performing expectations for Perry’s money character, but again, not enough to make Perry lose money. One of Perry’s next films is his big crossover effort playing Alex Cross (the character Morgan Freeman played in Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider). If it doesn’t work, Perry may yet keep trying, which could kill his appeal – and I note this for those looking for an Achilles heel. And Perry’s For Colored Girls – while surely not hurting him – has shown his limitations in terms of awards and wider appeal. But the bottom line is that as long as he makes money for Lionsgate, he’s not going anywhere.

Water for Elephants opened better than expected. Likely this is because of fans of novel more than Robert Pattinson Twilight fans. I say this because I remember Remember Me, which starred the dude. It’s definitely not Reese Witherspoon fans, who doesn’t seem like much of a star after the underrated How Do You Know tanked. Maybe it’s Christoph Waltz fans. But if Fox believed in the film it wouldn’t have opened a week after their Rio. Is $40-$50 enough to make this a minor success? Seems likely if the international numbers are strong. And this could play for a while, though there are a number of counter-programmed May titles that could take the date night heat. Date night movies are a term that’s been thrown around for years in regards to box office, and couples. I wonder anyone actually has a system of sexual gratification based around such movies. Twilight strikes me as a film series in the “anal” category.

Hop crossed the nine digit mark, making it a bigger success. The film is running out of time (shouldn’t this weekend end it?) but it may still get another twenty million in the bank. Relatively cheap, it’s a win. The same could probably be said of African Cats, which was surely done on the cheap, and the theatrical release helps benefit its stock. Disney’s nature films are an interesting subgenre, and I guess – for the sake of documentation – these are “good” films.

Scream 4 is off more than 60%, which is to be expected, but there’s no good news with this one. Maybe the film limps near $50 Million, but that’s a huge fall for the series, and this should end it until it actually gets rebooted – if that can happen. This is failure. Which is interesting because Insidious is still playing strong for what it is, even if the cume is around the same at the end of the day.

Soul Surfer and Hanna are doing reasonable business, and playing – or at least playing stronger than Arthur, which is already out of the top ten. Source Code is still in theaters. The Hollywood Reporter did a queasily bullshit story this week trumpeting the unlikely success of Atlas Shruggled Part 1. The film added 165 screens, and still went down nearly 50%, so it becoming a word of mouth or under the radar sensation is effectively squashed.

Next week brings us Fast Five. And may God have mercy on our souls.