A VERY GOOD FRIDAY: #1 'Rio' Soars, #2 'Madea' Mans Up, #3 'Elephants' Steps Up

FRIDAY PM/SATURDAY AM, 3RD UPDATE: Studios tell me this Easter Weekend has begun with rain in 2/3s of the U.S. and the first huge "up" weekend of $130+M, which is +40% from last year. Twentieth Century Fox's Rio 3D may be about a bird, but Friday numbers show "it's holding like a rock," a studio exec just emailed me. Lionsgate's latest in Tyler Perry's franchise, Madea's Big Happy Family, has a per screen average of $4,620 which was the best of all the top-grossing pictures Friday. This is, after all, Perry's sixth cross-dressing film; still, the last one opened to a $41M weekend and the one before to $30M and this will be even lower by end of day Sunday. But overperforming is Fox's Water For Elephants based on Sara Gruen's best-selling book and written by Richard LaGravenese and directed by Francis Lawrence. Clearly, the classy ad campaign was intriguing for adults and Robert Pattinson's Twi-hards even though this drama was considered a hard sell. "Terrific start for Elephants as we could hit higher teens," a Fox exec tells me. It was also a fine day for Universal's holdover Hop from Illumination Entertainment after passing $100M. It'll pop on Saturday and Sunday for the little bunnies and their parents. And Disneynature's African Cats narrated by Samuel Jackson is also playing strong for a niche nature movie that truly deserves to be seen. So it's a very Good Friday in more ways than one! Full analysis coming. Here is the Top 10:

1. Rio 3D (Blue Sky Studio/Fox) Week 2 [3,842 Theaters]
Friday $10.7M (+4%), Estimated Easter Weekend $27.5M, Estimated Cume $81M

2. Madea's Big Happy Family (Tyler Perry/Lionsgate) NEW [2,288 Theaters]
Friday $10.5M, Estimated Easter Weekend $26.5M

3. Water For Elephants (Fox 2000/Fox) NEW [2,817 Theaters]
Friday $7M, Estimated Easter Weekend $18M

4. Hop (Illumination Entertainment/Universal) Week 4 [3,616 Theaters]
Friday $4.8M, Estimated Easter Weekend $10M, Estimated Cume $105M 

5. African Cats (Disneynature/Walt Disney Studios) NEW [1,220 Theaters]
Friday $3.3M, Estimated Easter Weekend $7.8M

6. Scream 4 (Miramax/Dimension/Weinstein Co) Week 2 [3,314 Theaters]
Friday $2.7M (-67%), Estimated Easter Weekend $6.5M, Estimated Cume $30.5M

7. Soul Surfer (FilmDistrict/Sony) Week 3 [2,240 Theaters]]
Friday $2.3M, Estimated Easter Weekend $6.3M, Estimated Cume $29.5M

8. Insidious (FilmDistrict) Week 4 [2,130 Theaters]
Friday $2.1M, Estimated Easter Weekend $5.5M, Estimated Cume $44.3M

9. Hanna (Focus Features) Week 3 [2,383 theaters]
Friday $1.8M, Estimated Easter Weekend $5.3M, Estimated Cume $31.7M

10. Source Code (Summit) Week 4 [2,363 Theaters]
Friday $1.8M, Estimated Easter Weekend $5.5M, Estimated Cume $45M

Deadline
xoxo
Carrie