Monday Morning Quarterback
By BOP Staff
April 15, 2014
BoxOfficeProphets.com
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.
Bruce Hall: I'm with Jason on wanting to focus on the international business. Stateside the emphasis is on how the weekend gross is eerily similar to the first movie. But am I alone in thinking that's Rio 2's least significant accomplishment?? How many of us were expecting more than this? In fact, had the take been $29 million instead of $39, everyone would be saying "Well, you know what they say about sequels." Instead, Rio 2 neatly matched its predecessor domestically, and is outpacing the previous film's international debut by a wide margin.
I don't think anyone, anywhere is losing any sleep over this tonight.
Kim Hollis: I guess this feels mildly disappointing to me. While I realize that they’re effectively just making Rio films to play to a more international audience, I find myself wondering why they couldn’t give us a good story to go along with the pretty pictures and perhaps expand to a larger audience. I’m not saying that the opening would really have been any different, but perhaps they could have had an extended run in North American theaters with good word-of-mouth. We’ve seen time and time again that people respond to quality in animation, after all. Now, they’re going to do “well enough” and yes the movie will make money, but it’s a throwaway, forgettable project that no one’s going to be talking about in a month or two – just like the Ice Age films.
Max Braden: Anecdotally, this number feels surprisingly low to me. My impression of kids’ reactions to the first Rio is that it's one of the big home video hits in recent years. I thought the ads looked impressively similar to the original (versus the wild detour of Cars 2). Both those factors led me to believe that the Rio 2 opening would be significantly larger than it was. On the other hand, I didn't see a lot of advertising and kept forgetting that this was being released. I just think that if it had been pushed a little more, kids might have been clamoring more to see it.
David Mumpower: I'm going to directly counter Max here as well as everybody else who has replied thus far by asking a simple question. What do you remember about Rio? Assuming you have seen the movie, is there a single aspect of it that you find identifiable?
I am not querying people to be difficult, either. I own a 3D Blu-Ray of Rio that I have watched multiple times. I also own Rio on Ultraviolet, and I think it is telling that I had to search Vudu to verify that this is the case. I thought I did but I was not 100% sure, which forces me to re-assess the intelligence of that purchase.
Rio is an absolutely breathtaking visual achievement. I honestly believe it is in the conversation for the most visually stimulating animated movie ever made. The problem is that by describing Rio as vanilla, we insult the flavor of vanilla. It is at least distinguishable in some regard. Rio as a story lacks that sort of individuality.
I say all of this to point out that while several recent animated sequels have disappointed mightily, Rio 2 matched its predecessor in spite of the quality of that movie. I believe we should acknowledge the triumph of that even as we direct people to follow the international revenue in order to gauge the true success of the project.