Families ruled over the Easter holiday frame as the G-rated laughs of the Dr. Suess toon Horton Hears a Who once again proved to be the most popular game in town. The Fox hit spent a second week at number one and fended off competition from a handful of new films. Among the new releases, films with multicultural casts delivered the most impressive averages. Tyler Perry's latest hit Meet the Browns bowed in second place while the Latino drama Under the Same Moon opened in limited release but was still strong enough to crack the top ten. The spookfest Shutter and the bodyguard comedy Drillbit Taylor were met with lukewarm openings and landed in the top five. Overall, it was the worst Easter weekend box office in three years.

The vocal talents of Jim Carrey and Steve Carell led Horton to an estimated $25.1M in ticket sales this weekend and represented a rather sizable 44% decline. The animated comedy was helped by the Good Friday holiday but still posted a larger sophomore drop than other non-sequel March toons from Fox and Blue Sky Studios. 2002's Ice Age fell 35% while Robots dropped 42% in 2005. Plus neither film had any Easter help on the sophomore session. After ten days of release, Horton has taken in a solid $86.5M which is just 1% behind Ice Age at the same point in its release but 31% ahead of Robots. Given the elephant pic's warm reception with critics and audiences, the relative lack of new competitors, and the holiday, a smaller decline was expected. But despite the big drop, the Seuss extravaganza still should finish its domestic run in the neighborhood of $150M.

Tyler Perry secured the runnerup spot with his latest effort Meet the Browns which opened to an estimated $20M. The filmmaker's fifth release in four years enjoyed the highest per-theater average of any film in the top ten with a robust $9,977 from 2,006 locations. The PG-13 film stars Angela Bassett and debuted in the same range as Perry's last film Why Did I Get Married? which bowed to $21.4M last October from a similar number of theaters. It did not have the Good Friday holiday to help its opening weekend though.

Opening a little better than expected, Fox's horror flick Shutter debuted in third with an estimated $10.7M from 2,753 sites. The remake of a Thai fright hit averaged a mediocre $3,887 and played to a young female audience. The studio kept the marketing volume low until the final week before release when it made an aggressive push at its target demo. Joshua Jackson stars in Shutter as an American photographer in Tokyo who discovers haunting images in his snapshots. Reviews were dismal.

Owen Wilson's latest comedy Drillbit Taylor posted a mild opening in fourth place taking in an estimated $10.2M from 3,056 theaters. Averaging just $3,338 per site, the PG-13 pic about a bum hired by nerdy high school freshmen to be a bodyguard played to a tween and teen audience. Reviews were negative for the Paramount release which proved that without other major stars at his side (Vince Vaughn, Ben Stiller, Jackie Chan), Owen Wilson is no sure thing at the box office.

The caveman flick 10,000 BC ranked fifth with an estimated $8.7M, down 48%, for a cume to date of $76.1M for Warner Bros. Summit's first in-house production Never Back Down dropped an acceptable 44% in its second weekend and grossed an estimated $4.9M. With $16.8M collected in ten days, the $20M fight pic looks to reach roughly $25M by the end of its theatrical run.

Disney's family comedy College Road Trip slipped 41% to an estimated $4.6M in its third frame and raised its tally to $32M. Moviegoers continued to spread good word-of-mouth for the Jason Statham heist actioner The Bank Job which dipped only 19% to an estimated $4.1M for a $19.4M total. The Lionsgate release posted the smallest decline in the top ten two weeks in a row. Yet another action film followed in ninth with Sony's Vantage Point which took in an estimated $3.8M, down just 30%, for a $65.3M cume.

The immigration drama Under the Same Moon debuted to strong numbers in limited release and landed in the top ten right at the ten spot. The Weinstein Company's PG-13 film grossed an estimated $2.6M from only 266 locations and averaged a sturdy $9,782 per site. It scored the second best average in the top ten ranking just a bit below Meet the Browns. Since its Wednesday launch, the Sundance Film Festival audience favorite and its mostly Latino cast has taken in a solid $3.3M. Fox Searchlight marketed the Spanish-language title while Weinstein handled distribution duties.

The top ten films grossed an estimated $94.7M which was down 10% from last year's Easter frame when Blades of Glory led the field with $22.5M; and down 12% from 2006's holiday when Scary Movie 4 debuted in the top spot with $40.2M. Author: Gitesh Pandya, www.BoxOfficeGuru.com