Yay, weekend! Unless, that is, you're not keen on 3-D animated family films or rehashed horror satire, in which case... Well, still: Yay, weekend! Like it or not, let's throw some numbers around and surmise what our box-office king might look like come Sunday. (Hint: He's not wearing a Ghostface mask.)
[Follow the links below to each film's Movieline review.]
NATIONAL OUTLOOK
· Rio: Take one animated, adorable, domesticated tropical bird. Add an exotic love interest whom he pursues in South America. Add the filmmakers' Ice Age creds and liberal helpings of 3-D. Then adjust for attrition away from two-week animated wonder Hop. Stir in spring break to taste. Mmmm-mmm now that is what I call an opening weekend. FORECAST: $44.8 million
· Scream 4: I always like to say we should keep this feature short, and this time I mean it: You're either geeked to see the fourth installment of the once-beloved, now-belabored horror franchise this weekend, or you're simply going to keep your distance from the multiplex entirely. Young talent will drive the kids in, but this one's almost all fan base, and it feels kind of impossible to predict at this point. But! Fortune favors the bold -- will it favor Harvey Weinstein? FORECAST: $24.6 million
REGIONAL OUTLOOK
Directed by Robert Redford and featuring the always-terrific James McAvoy as a northern lawyer defending a Confederate loyalist against charges of conspiring to kill Abraham Lincoln, the ostensible awards-horse The Conspirator nevertheless stumbled out of the gate last year at the Toronto Film Festival. Seven months and countless mixed reviews later, the courtroom melodrama reaches an aggressive 700 screens this weekend -- a little more than twice as many as the also-aggressive indie enterprise Atlas Shrugged: Part One. Yes, that Atlas Shrugged -- Ayn Rand's epic 1,200-page bible of Objectivism. Honestly what I've seen looks more hurried and soapy than terrible; the actors get characters like Dagny Taggart and Hank Rearden in a way I'm not sure Rand herself ever did. So we'll see what happens with that. Highly recommended at the art house, meanwhile, is the Italian romantic thriller The Double Hour. Not so recommended: the Danish-made Afghan war documentary Armadillo.
So! What's your pleasure this weekend?