'Captain America' Conquers 'Rio 2,' 'Oculus' Does Just Fine
by EGFor awhile it looked like the little blue animated parrots of "Rio 2" were going to take out the First Avenger, but "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" rebounded over the weekend to grab first place in the box-office race. Aside from that, there weren't any huge surprises delivered by any of this week's new movies.
"Rio 2" started strong, and after taking in $12 million on Friday, in comparison to "Captain America"'s $11.9 million, the animated film seemed poised to win the weekend. Logic said that families with small kids would get out to theaters on Saturday and Sunday, and "Rio 2" would remain strong throughout the weekend. But then the weather turned nice across much of the country, and families, it seemed, decided to spend some time outside instead. Estimates have "Rio 2" taking in $39 million for the weekend, behind "Captain America"'s estimated $41.4 million.
Third place went to new horror movie "Oculus," which took in about $15 million, thereby earning three times its production budget in its first weekend; that's not surprising for a low-budget horror movie these days, but tepid word of mouth could hurt the movie over the long run. Kevin Costner's sport-geek movie, "Draft Day," took in a weak $9.8 million.