Box Office Stays in Rio

Last week’s number one movie, Rio, held onto the top spot at the box office over Easter weekend (weekend gross $26.8 million, total gross $81.2 million), though Tyler Perry’s newest, Madea’s Big Happy Family, came in a close second, earning $25.7 million in its first weekend. New release Water for Elephants came in third with $17.5 million, and the Easter-themed Hop made $12.4 million, bringing its total to $100.4 million. The decade-in-the-making Scream 4 came in at number five (weekend gross $7.1 million, total gross $31.1 million) after debuting last weekend at number two.

Also out in wide release was Disney’s newest nature documentary African Cats ($6.4 million), with Morgan Spurlock’s The Greatest Movie Ever Sold ($135,139), Incendies ($54,582), Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen ($11,500) and Stake Land ($7,500 in just one theater) all coming out in limited release.

Which movies will be trying to gain that number one spot next weekend? Out in wide release will be Fast Five, Hoodwinked 2: Hood vs. Evil, Dylan Dog: Dead of Night and Prom. Limited releases are Earthwork, Exporting Raymond, 13 Assassins, That’s What I Am, The Robber, Sympathy for Delicious and Werner Herzog’s 3-D documentary on cave drawings, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, which is poised to shock unsuspecting studio heads by making more money next weekend than all of the animated kid’s movies combined. I’m calling it.