Can Blu fly past the Captain?

Rio 2 and Captain America: The Winter Soldier will both vie for the top slot at the box office this Friday-Sunday. The former is one of the weekend’s new major releases and the follow-up to the popular Rio, an animated kids’ film about a pair of endangered macaws (voiced by Jesse Eisenberg and Anne Hathaway).  When it opened in spring of 2011, Rio grossed almost $40 million. Its successor is currently tracking in the high-$30-to-low-$40-millions range, prompting many pundits to speculate it should match, possibly even better, the original. If either proves to be the case, Rio 2 will give holdover Captain America: The Winter Soldier a run for its sky-high pile of dough. Given positive critical reviews and smiling word-of-mouth, The Winter Soldier is expected to hold well. However, comic book movies often plummet their second weekend in theatres – Iron Man 3 dipped 58 percent, for example – so the title of Weekend’s Top Earner is really up for grabs.

Beginning today and with a slightly smaller platform than Rio 2, which opens in 3,948 locations, the latest sports film to star Kevin Costner, Draft Day, will screen in 2,781 theatres. The movie gives a fictionalized behind-the-scenes look at the unpublicized maneuvering that takes place in the lead-up to the NFL draft. Costner is firmly ensconced in familiar territory here, playing the American underdog everyman fighting for good amidst the corrupt milieu of an American sports industry. Field of Dreams, Bull Durham and Tin Cup are among Costner’s best-loved movies, and Draft Day looks to repeat the old-fashioned though nonetheless satisfying story arc characteristic of those films. Will audiences go for Costner’s brand of comfort? Reviews for Draft Day aren’t great, and recent sports movies haven’t opened very strong: Moneyball, which is basically the baseball version of Day, had great buzz going for it and still only managed to rake in $19.5 million over its opening weekend. Distributor Lionsgate believes Draft Day will gross in the low teens.

The last new major release to open this weekend is also the first horror offering since January’s Devil’s Due. Oculus will screen in 2,648 theatres. The flick has producer Jason Blum (the Paranormal Activity movies) behind it, and has been pretty well reviewed, though box-office expectations are modest. Returns around $11 or $12 million would be considered solid.

Finally, the specialty realm has two new offerings of its own in Joe, starring Nicolas Cage and directed by cult favorite David Gordon Green, and Cuban Fury, a salsa comedy starring Nick Frost and Rashida Jones. The latter is playing in 79 theatres while the former will start off its B.O. run in 48 locations.

‘The Winter Soldier’ ices the competition

The Avengers effect was on full display this weekend as Captain America: The Winter Soldier blew its predecessor out of the water, not to mention the other films currently playing in theatres, with a $96.2 million debut. That tallies out to a 48 percent improvement over the first Captain America’s opening weekend haul, and falls just shy of the wildly successful Iron Man’s $98.6 million bow in 2008. Since The Avengers premiered in summer of 2012, subsequent films featuring Avengers characters have enjoyed great success, prompting pundits to coin the term “The Avengers effect.” To wit: Iron Man 3’s debut was up 63 percent over pre-Avengers Iron Man 2, while Thor: The Dark World enjoyed a 30 percent bump over its predecessor. If Captain America: The Winter Soldier roughly follows the same theatrical trajectory as The Dark World, it should end up banking around $230 million in total. With audiences (64 percent male) awarding the movie an A CinemaScore grade, The Winter Soldier’s hold should prove strong in the weeks ahead.

Coming in way, way, practically subterranean (subaquatic?) below Captain America, Noah landed the weekend’s No. 2 spot with a $17 million gross. Down a whopping 61 percent from last weekend, Noah has so far earned $72.3 million.

For its part, the weekend’s No. 3 earner, Divergent, has raked in $114 million to date. It earned $13 million of that total this weekend.

God’s Not Dead continues to testify to the power of the faithful: The film added an additional $7.7 million to its cume that now stands at $32.5 million.  Clocking in at No. 5, The Grand Budapest Hotel continues to testify to the appeal of Wes Anderson: The film raked in $6.3 million. Its cume thus far tallies out to $33.4 million.

Halle Berry’s maltreated Frankie & Alice, which has been ready and waiting for theatrical release since 2010, finally debuted this weekend. Unfortunately, interest in the flick, for which Berry earned a Golden Globe nomination in ’10, was wanting. The movie earned just $350,000 from 171 locations.

On the positive end of the specialty spectrum, Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin starring Scarlett Johansson raked in $140,000 from four theatres (two in LA and two in New York City), which tallies out to a nice per-theatre average of $35,000.

Can the Captain break an April record?

Captain America: The Winter Soldier flies into 3,938 theatres today, by all indications readying itself for quite the stunt landing. This latest installment in the increasingly crowded Marvel cinematic universe has already broken the record for most advance tickets sold, according to Fandango. Overseas, the film has grossed more than $100 million.

Can Captain America break $100 million at the domestic box office this weekend? Between advance sales and positive reviews (87 percent fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) it’s certainly possible, although most pundits are predicting slightly lower returns, in the still-magnificent $80-$90 million range. The Winter Soldier has a few things going for it: The return of Avengers crossover characters Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) as well as an association with the familiar S.H.I.E.L.D. organization (itself the subject of a TV series – media hybridity at its best), and the introduction of a new hero, Falcon (Anthony Mackie). The WWII period setting that dominated much of the first film has been swapped in favor of a contemporary Washington, D.C., backdrop. An ultra-modern conflict involving wiretapping, national security, and that thin line between necessary protection and unlawful invasion of privacy also lends the movie a topical boost. Critics certainly like it. All in all, Captain America: The Winter Soldier is poised to set a new April record. (Fast Five currently holds the title of Strongest April Debut, having opened to $86.2 million in 2011.)

The much delayed Halle Berry vehicle, Frankie and Alice, also opens this weekend in limited release. The movie has been ready and yet collecting dust on the shelves since 2010, even though Berry won an award for her portrayal of a woman suffering from multiple-personality disorder that year. From distributor Freestyle Releasing, Frankie and Alice changed hands to current distributor Code Black, which is a division of Lionsgate.  Even given the draw of Berry’s name, it’s unlikely Frankie and Alice will earn more than $500,000.

Holdovers Noah and Divergent should round out the weekend’s top three just behind Captain America: The Winter Soldier.