20th Century Fox's animated family film "Rio" made much more noise than Scream 4 could, opening in North America in first place with $40 million this weekend.
Featuring the voices of Anne Hathaway and Jesse Eisenberg, Riohad the best debut of any film so far this year. It beat another animated comedy, Rango, by about $2 million.
In its second weekend overseas, the 3D computer-animated Rio stayed in first place, making $53.9 million in 13,705 venues in 62 countries.
The movie, from Fox Animation and Blue Sky Studios, has grossed $129.1 million overseas and $169.1 million worldwide.
Rio's opening results are considerably above what Fox had expected for the story of romance and smuggling involving rare birds.
"It's working in every country on the planet," said Fox distribution executive Bert Livingston. "It's G-rated, which means it's for everybody." He suggested that Rio can continue to take wing, since many children will be away from school during the next week leading to Easter.
Of 17 new countries where it opened over the weekend, eight furnished No. 1 showings for Rio. The best showing was in France, where the movie made $4.7 million from venues. According to Fox, the weekend gross in Venezuela -- $1.4 million from 99 locations -- was the biggest opening ever recorded in that country.
Rio -- directed by Rio native Carlos Saldanha -- had a continuing strong showing in Brazil. There, it made $7.46 million from 997 screens this weekend for a cumulative total of $18.9 million.
Despite dropping to second place in Britain, it made $2.99 million from 1,100 venues -- up 26% from the opening weekend there.
In North America, slasher comedy Scream 4 opened in a weak second place with $19.3 million. Released by the Weinstein Company's Dimension Films, it made just a fraction of the gross for the previous two sequels, each of which both debuted at more than $30 million over 10 years ago.
Also at United States and Canadian theaters, Russell Brand's Easter story Hopfell to third place after two weekends topping the box office. This time around, the Universal film made $11.2 million, bringing total North American grosses to $82.6 million.
Combining animation and live action, Hop opened in 14 countries this past weekend, grossing $10.3 million from 5,200 venues in 45 countries to rank No. 3 at the box office. It's made a foreign cumulative gross of $29.4 million and a worldwide gross of $112 million.
Hop made $1.8 million in Mexico from 489 locations, opening in second place. In Australia, it collected $2.3 million in its second weekend from 247 locations -- up by nearly 50% over the opening weekend.
Hop opens in nine countries this week.
In North America, box-office revenues rose this past weekend for only the second time since last November. Overall, movies grossed $134 million -- up 12% from the same weekend in 2010, when Kick-Ass topped the box office with $19.8 million.
"I'm going to be so bold as to say this may be the beginning of the turnaround," said Hollywood.com box-office analyst Paul Dergarabedian. "Summer's almost here, and it's the most important moviegoing season. It couldn't be coming at a better time."
Estimated ticket sales figures at U.S. and Canadian theaters for Friday through Sunday were released by Hollywood.com. Final figures are scheduled for release Monday.
