Weekend Forecast: How to Make a Fast Buck at the Box Office

Hint: Take a lucrative megafranchise, add a whole new superstar to the original cast, and then open opposite what's arguably the weakest wide-release competition of any tentpole this year. Next: Back up the Brinks truck and commence loading. Read on for a closer look at the weekend's box-office landscape -- Hollywood's last dress rehearsal before the summer movie season gets underway.

[Click the links below for Movieline's reviews]

NATIONAL OUTLOOK

· Fast Five: The fifth installment of Universal's evergreen muscle-car institution heads off to Brazil with all the remaining series regulars, including Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster, and returning director Justin Lin. Only this time, since you're already suspending the legal maximum of disbelief, they've roped Dwayne Johnson in as a federal agent dispatched to find the fabled Toretto/O'Conner gang before they can pull off one last job in Rio. Why am I even bothering writing this? The movie works creatively, it more than works commercially, and while Universal is publicly holding low, $60 million expectations, anything less than the $70 million opening enjoyed by Fast and Furious in 2009 -- especially on more than 3,600 screens and with IMAX fees factored in -- would be not only disappointing but outright shocking. FORECAST: $78.7 million

· Prom: With franchises from Hanna Montana to High School Musical pushing up daisies on the studio's Burbank lot, Disney seeks this week to jump start at least something to which it can hitch a new tween phenomenon. The film manages OK by Movieline's own estimation, and the school-season timing is right, but come on. I just hope the dry cleaner can get Fast Five's tire tracks out of all those gowns and tuxedos. FORECAST: $10.2 million

· Hoodwinked Too! Hood Vs. Evil: It lives! After a delay of nearly a year and a half (and a resultant lawsuit from the production company), the Weinstein Company finally unshelves the sequel to its surprise 2005 animated hit. It should experience some support from the crowd that pushed the original to a $12 million opening weekend on just a few hundred fewer screens than this week's 2,500, but even with a 3-D ticket boost, the replacement of original star Anne Hathaway with new voice talent Hayden Panettiere and the long shadow of megahit Rio will make enough of an impact to keep this well below eight figures. What big teeth it had, though. FORECAST: $7.9 million

REGIONAL OUTLOOK

Highlights from a sparse weekend of limited releases include Werner Herzog's sublime 3-D journey to the center of subterranean Southern France, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, along with fellow auteur Takashi Miike's brutal, breathtaking samurai-action epic 13 Assassins. Elsewhere look for the comics adaptation Dylan Dog: Dead of Night, featuring ex-Superman Brandon Routh as the monster-hunting bayou gumshoe, in medium release on 860 screens.

What are you checking out?