The summer movie season “unofficially” starts this weekend with the release of Fast Five, the fifth Fast & Furious film from Universal. Clearly the high octane thrill ride will run over all of the competition this weekend and easily roll into first place. In fact, there is a possibility that Fast Five will collect more money than the rest of the Top 10 combined. Also opening this weekend is Disney’s coming of age story Prom , animated sequel Hoodwinked Too: Hood vs. Evil from The Weinstein Co. and Freestyle Releasing’s Dylan Dog: Dead of Night starring former Superman, Brandon Routh. These three films have little chance of making any real impact at the box office, but thanks to Fast Five, this will be the third straight weekend that the cumulative Top 10 box office will be up from last year. Based on estimates from FilmGo.net, the Top 10 should be up a staggering 43% versus last year.

This weekend Fox’s Rio continued to fly high leading the box office to a decisive victory over last year at this time. Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Big Happy Family from Lionsgate, opened well in second place (although it was a significantly lower opening than the last Madea film) while novel adaption Water for Elephants from 20^th Century Fox enjoyed a solid opening in third. The only other new film for the weekend, nature documentary African Cats from Disney landed in sixth place. Thanks to a strong Good Friday at the box office, all holdover films in the Top 10 (with the exception of Scream 4) experienced slim declines.

With kids’ home from school and many adults off from work, Good Friday was a great Friday at the box office. 20^th Century Fox’s Rio continued to dominate the box office while Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Big Happy Family from Lionsgate premiered in a close second place. Fox’s Novel adaption Water for Elephants is looking solid in third place and performing better than most industry expectations. Disney’s latest documentary African Cats also saw a decent debut and is on par with the last two films from DisneyNature, Earth and Oceans. Holdover films from prior weeks are also displaying great strength and should help push the overall Top 10 to a decisive victory over last year at this time.

Thanks to 20^th Century Fox’s Rio, last weekend’s Top 10 was up slightly from the year prior for the first time in many weeks. This weekend the trend should continue with the release of Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Big Happy Family from Lionsgate and 20^th Century Fox’s adaption of acclaimed novel Water for Elephants. Disney will also try to capitalize on Earth Day with documentary African Cats. Madea alone should have a bigger opening than the trio of new films that opened last year at this time combined. Many holdover films should perform well this weekend as well, making a strong case that the box office slump of 2011 could very well be over. 

In what seemed like was going to be a tight race for the top of the charts this weekend, 20^th Century Fox’s Rio flew off with an easy victory against horror sequel Scream 4 from Dimension Films. Rio had the best opening of the year so far (a record that should last about two weeks until Fast Five comes out). Scream 4 opened way lower than most industry expectations (including mine) and may have shut the door on the franchise for good; until they decide to reboot it that is. 

Wow. This weekend was supposed to halt the great box office slump of 2011, but once again the new films are underperforming. In all fairness, Rio is still performing rather well (although lower than many, including myself, thought), but the fact that it is only going to match the opening of recent 2D toons Hop and Rango is slightly disappointing. With premium charges for 3D showings, Rio should have easily outpaced the before mentioned films and debuted north of $40 million. Rio will still be considered a hit when all is said and done and should perform very well this week with many kids off from school for Spring Break. With no new competition opening for the family audience in the next few weeks, Rio should experience good holds over the next few weekends.

After a lackluster weekend which saw four new films perform rather poorly, the box office is set to spring forward this weekend with the release of two highly anticipated films. 20^th Century Fox hopes its animated birds can soar this weekend as they release Rio in theatres nationwide. Wes Craven is back after over a decade with the next chapter in his lucrative horror franchise with Scream 4 from Dimension Films. These two films will be after completely separate audiences, but they both have the potential to open north of $40 million making it a very tight race for first place this weekend. One thing is for certain, the 2011 box office slump ends this weekend. Based on FilmGo.net’s estimates, the top 10 should be up a healthy 20% or so from this time last year. The upwards trend should continue over the rest of the month as next weekend Lionsgate releases Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Big Happy Family and the following weekend Universal’s Fast Five is sure to race away with box office gold. 

This weekend at the box office, Universal’s family comedy Hop easily fended off a quartet of new films and became the first film of the year to secure the top spot on the charts for more than one weekend. Warner Bros. comedy remake Arthur came in second with disappointing results. Focus Features action thriller Hanna opened in third with better than expected results, while Soul Surfer from FilmDistrict/TriStar rode the Christian wave of support to fourth place.   Universal’s medieval comedy Your Highness bombed, failing to make the Top 5 and after seeing it, I’m not surprised. I was quite looking forward to the film but it was rather dreadful.

Even with four new films challenging it, Universal’s family comedy Hop is easily securing another first place finish. Hop is the first film of the year to be #1 two weeks in a row. Both Arthur and Your Highness are performing worse than expected, while Hanna and Soul Surfer are doing slightly better than expected. If Soul Surfer performs very well today, there is even a chance of it taking second place for the weekend. Here’s a look at Friday estimates with projected weekend totals.

Oh well, that’s $50 and two hours of my life that I’ll never get back. Zack Snyder’s fantasy epic Sucker Punch is perhaps the worst movie I’ve ever seen. The film is weightless, soulless and lacks any semblance of story or narrative cohesion. In reality, Snyder has made the world’s first long form music video.