Life & Style

Hollywood box office review

Captain America soars above Rio 2 birds to win box office.

Reuters April 15, 2014

Since Disney bought Marvel for $4 billion in 2009, Marvel characters have starred in some of Hollywood’s biggest hits. PHOTOS: FILE

LOS ANGELES/NEW YORK: Marvel’s red-white-and-blue superhero soared to a second straight box office win in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, beating out new animated movie Rio 2, the story of a family of Brazilian birds on a trip to the Amazon. Walt Disney Co’s Captain America, which set an April ticket sales record when it opened a week ago, pulled in another $41.4 million from Friday to Sunday at US and Canadian theaters. The Rio sequel from 20th Century Fox debuted with $39 million in ticket sales, according to estimates from tracking firm Rentrak.

Low-budget horror flick Oculus, a new film from Paranormal Activity producer Jason Blum, finished in third place, collecting $12 million. Rio 2 is a sequel to a 2011 film about a vibrantly colored family of rare macaw birds in Brazil. Jesse Eisenberg and Anne Hathaway provide voices for the avian parents who take their family to the Amazon in search of a possible colony of their critically endangered brothers and sisters.

Captain America, which stars Chris Evans as a scrawny World War Two reject given super powers from an experimental serum, is the latest superhero hit from Disney’s Marvel Studios. The film has earned a total of $476 million since it started rolling out internationally on March 26, validating the strategy of distributor Disney to ramp up its pipeline of films featuring Marvel Comics super heroes.

Oculus, distributed by Relativity Media, stars British actor Karen Gillan as a young woman who is convinced an ornate mirror in her home is haunted. Like Blum’s other horror hits, it cost less than $5 million to make. Relativity paid $2.5 million for rights to distribute the film in the United States and Canada.

Football drama Draft Day earned the No. 4 slot, grossing $9.75 million. The movie stars Kevin Costner as fictional Cleveland Browns general manager Sonny Weaver Jr., who races the clock to maneuver for the best players while dealing with upheaval in his personal life.

Rounding out the top five, the dystopian action film Divergent pulled in $7.5 million. Its worldwide grosses have reached $175 million.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 16^th, 2014.

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