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Kim Hollis: Rio 2, a sequel to the musical parrot movie, debuted with $39.3 million for the weekend. What do you think of this result?

Brett Ballard-Beach: This effectively opened to exactly what the first one did. It beat out Winter Soldier on Friday (barely, but still . . .) and then - even being an animated kids' film - ended up getting beaten out on Saturday and Sunday. For the North American market, it will probably be able to eke out what the first one made, maybe a little more. In other words, this franchise appears as if it may just follow the Ice Age trend, where the grosses here remain stagnant and the worldwide explodes. To answer the question, it's not a great opening here at all, but that doesn't look like it will mean anything in the big picture: Blue Sky has found a winning formula.

Edwin Davies: This is a decent but unspectacular start domestically, but as Brett rightly pointed out, the domestic total for this film is not the main concern. It's already on pace to outperform the first film internationally, so even if it doesn't set the box office on fire here, it'll still be wildly successful and pretty much guarantee that this now-franchise will continue for at least another installment.

Jason Barney: This is an excellent opening on all fronts. Coming in second to Captain America Winter Soldier really doesn't matter, as the superhero film is the biggest film of the year thus far. Coming in at $39 million vs the number one movie for the year is outstanding. The domestic numbers didn't show any real expansion, but they are really just gravy as far as Fox is concerned.

When taking the foreign markets into account, in just one weekend Rio 2 has earned almost half of what the original did during its entire run. When all is said and done, Rio 2 will outpace Rio by a wide margin. Here in the U.S. the numbers are inconsequential...they just make the overall success a little bit larger.

Felix Quinonez: I think it's a solid result. We all know that International audiences are the real target for this movie. But even so I think the fact that it matched the opening weekend of the first movie is a small victory.

Matthew Huntley: The identical opening weekend of Rio 2 vis-à-vis the original suggests to me that families only chose to see it because it's the latest option in the marketplace and not because they were actually excited about it, hence the relatively banal numbers. With The LEGO Movie, Mr. Peabody & Sherman and Muppets Most Wanted fading away, Rio 2 was the default choice for the target demographic, and I'm willing to bet the sequel, like the original, is vanilla entertainment at best (I can't say for sure since I haven't seen it). With Easter/spring break coming up, I've no doubt it will end up in the same range as its predecessor domestically, with lots more worldwide, and even though this will certify it as a success, it's nothing special.

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