Weekend box office: 'Rio' flies high, 'Scream 4' disappoints

"Rio" brought families and animation fans to the theater in droves this weekend, giving the G-rated film a big win at the box office.

The weekend's other big release, "Scream 4," didn't have such good fortune.

"Rio," about a bird (voiced by Jesse Eisenberg) who needs to learn how to fly and set largely against the backdrop of Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro, earned an estimated $40 million in its opening weekend. That's better than what most forecasters were predicting and shows a really strong performance on Saturday and Sunday, since it opened Friday (April 15) with a $10.2 million take.

If the estimates hold up when final receipts are tallied, "Rio" would be the first movie this year to have a $40 million opening weekend.

"Scream 4," meanwhile, comes in as a slight disappointment. The newest entry in Wes Craven's franchise made $19.3 million, but box-office watchers were expecting returns of more like $25 million-$30 million. Its opening trails the last two "Scream" sequels by quite a bit; both "Scream 2" and "Scream 3" made better than $32 million in their first weekends.

The weekend's other semi-wide release, "The Conspirator," made an estimated $3.9 million on 707 screens and finished ninth. An adaptation of Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" took in $1.7 million on 299 screens.

The weekend's top 10 movies:

1. "Rio," $40 million
2. "Scream 4," $19.3 million
3. "Hop," $11.2 million
4. "Soul Surfer," $7.4 million
5. "Hanna," $7.3 million
6. "Arthur," $6.94 million
7. "Insidious," $6.86 million
8. "Source Code," $6.3 million
9. "The Conspirator," $3.92 million
10. "Your Highness," $3.89 million