NEWSMAKERS | Fans head to ‘Rio,’ shrug over ‘Scream’

NEWSMAKERS

Fans head to ‘Rio,’ shrug over ‘Scream’

LOS ANGELES

Movie fans are going to “Rio” in big numbers, but they’re not quite screaming over the latest installment of a horror-comedy franchise.

The 20th Century Fox animated family flick “Rio,” featuring the voices of Anne Hathaway and Jesse Eisenberg, led the weekend box office with a healthy $40 million debut, according to studio estimates Sunday.

It was the best debut so far this year, topping another animated comedy, “Rango,” by about $2 million.

The slasher comedy “Scream 4,” released by the Weinstein Co. banner Dimension Films, opened at No. 2 with just $19.3 million. That’s a fraction of the business for the previous two sequels, which both debuted at over $30 million more than a decade ago.

Business finally climbed for Hollywood, which has been in a prolonged slide. Revenues rose for only the second time since last November, coming in at $134 million, up 12 percent compared to the same weekend last year, when “Kick-Ass” led with $19.8 million.

Gordon-Levitt in new sci-fi film

SHANGHAI

After traveling to Japan for a dream-reading assignment in “Inception,” Joseph Gordon-Levitt has taken on another sci-fi picture that brings him to Asia — the China-set action-thriller “Looper.”

Promoting the movie in the eastern Chinese financial center of Shanghai on Sunday, the 30-year-old American actor said, “I feel now, doing ‘Looper,’ is the result of what happened with ‘Inception.’ It is something I have been working for my whole life.”

Directed by Rian Johnson, “Looper” also co-stars Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt and Chinese actress Xu Qing.

Comedy ‘Gallants’ named HK best film

HONG KONG

Hong Kong’s annual film awards on Sunday honored a sentimental favorite with its top prize — a quirky, low-budget action comedy about a kung fu master who briefly wakes up from a 30-year-old coma to train two aging students and two newcomers.

The $643,200 production “Gallants” beat out better-funded and more star-studded movies for the top prize at the 30th Hong Kong Film Awards, including the John Woo-produced kung fu thriller “Reign of Assassins,” which starred former Bond girl Michelle Yeoh.

Associated Press