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Curt David *really* wanted us to watch this!

Kim Hollis: Rio, the latest release from Blue Sky Studios, opened to $39.2 million. Its budget is estimated at $90 million, and it's already made $160 million worldwide. Do you view this as a good result, or are you bothered by the fact that it inflation adjusts as the studio's worst debut to date?

Tim Briody: This is fine, I think where it suffers the most is the timing. Hop came out two weeks ago, Rango was seven weeks ago and I'm come to the realization that something called Gnomeo and Juliet wasn't just a bad dream. There hadn't really been a lot of pent up "sheesh, we've gotta get out of the house and take the kids to a movie" demand. It's going to hold fairly well next weekend so I see minimal cause for alarm.

Josh Spiegel: I'm curious to see what the hold is for next weekend's take. On the one hand, Tim's right: Rio comes as the end of a glut of family films (including a lot of animated ones) over the past two months. If anything, families could have had some kind of overload. However, there's nothing that will compete with Rio for the next few weeks, so Rio might dominate even more than it has in the last few days (or the last week, if you live elsewhere in the world). In general, I think the number is solid, at the least.





Bruce Hall: Not to sound redundant or to sound redundant, but the first thing that popped into my head reading Kim's question was that yes, there has been an avalanche of snarky talking animal movies in recent weeks. Even the most enthusiastic of children may have had enough already. Even the most indulgent of parents must pulling their hair out in clumps at this point. It's not even May and Discover cards all across America are already sporting Christmas level balances again. But when you consider how much money has been wrung from this demographic this year, it's hard not to be optimistic. The domestic figure might be a little short but when you're sniffing 200% profit 72 hours after release, it's hard to complain. Isn't it?

Edwin Davies: I'm inclined to view this as a good result almost because of the saturation of kids' films we've had so far this year. If two snarky talking animal movies can open to within two weeks of each other and get almost identical results, that suggests to me that kids are not getting too sick of these films just yet. However, in the long run I'm not so sure of Rio's prospects, since neither Hop or Rango have shown the sort of legs that How to Train Your Dragon did that allowed that film to go from being a mild disappointment to a smash last year. The advantage that Rio has over Hop is that there isn't a film on the horizon (unless Hoodwinked 2 radically overperforms) that will cut its legs out from under it in the way that Rio has done to Hop this week.

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