Weekend Estimates: Rio and Madea Neck-and-Neck for Top Spot

April 24, 2011

After a typically topsy-turvy Easter weekend, with Friday the best day at the box office, it looks as though Rio will top the chart with an estimated $26.8 million 3-day weekend. Madea's Big Happy Family still stands a small chance of finishing first, but is currently projected to end the weekend about $1 million back with $25.75 million. Both those figures are about in line with expectations, but Water for Elephants did slightly better than expected with $17.5 million for third place.

Among the returning movies, the Easter-themed Hop jumped 16% from last weekend to earn an estimated $12.46 million and bounded past $100 million in the process (becoming only the third movie released this year to do so so far). Scream 4 crashed over 60% to finish in fourth place with $7.15 million.

African Cats opened in sixth place with a moderate $6.4 million and the rest of the top 20 produced no significant positive news. In a healthy sign for the industry, though, 12 distributors show up in the top 13 spots on the chart. That's a very unusual level of diversity for an industry that's been dominated by the six major studios for many years now.

- 3-Day Weekend Estimates
- Friday daily estimates
- Saturday daily estimates
- Sunday daily projections

Filed under: Weekend Estimates, Scream 4, Water for Elephants, Hop