In spite of four new films debuting in wide release, the holdover animated/live-action hybrid Hop maintained its hold on the box office with an estimated $21.7 million. Hop became the first film in 2011 to top the box office two weeks in a row. Overall the total of the top ten films was down 14% from the same weekend last year when Clash of the Titans and How to Train Your Dragon dominated the box office, and off 17% from 2009 when Hannah Montana: The Movie debuted with $32.3 million. It remains to be seen if the big budget highly touted releases in May starting with Kenneth Brannagh’s Thor can blast the box office out these persistent doldrums.

Weekend Box Office (Studio Estimates): April 8 - 10, 2011

 

Film

Weekend Gross

Screens

Avg./

Screen

Total Gross

Wk#

1

Hop

$21,696,000

3,616

$6,000

$68,152,000

2

2

Arthur

$12,605,000

3,276

$3,848

$12,605,000

1

3

Hanna

$12,323,000

2,535

$4,861

$12,323,000

1

4

Soul Surfer

$11,100,000

2,214

$5,014

$11,100,000

1

5

Insidious

$9,740,000

2,419

$4,026

$27,097,000

2

6

Your Highness

$9,520,000

2,769

$3,438

$9,520,000

1

7

Source Code

$9,050,000

2,971

$3,046

$28,619,000

2

8

Limitless

$5,692,000

2,655

$2,144

$64,380,000

4

9

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules

$4,885,000

2,881

$1,696

$45,462,000

3

10

The Lincoln Lawyer

$4,600,000

2,420

$1,901

$46,455,000

4

 
The British comedian Russell Brand actually “stars” in this week’s top two films. He provides the voice of the lead character in Hop and plays the lead in Arthur, which is a remake of the 1981 movie starring the diminutive Dudley Moore as a dipsomaniac millionaire playboy. The new Arthur underperformed at the box office (it had a poor per venue average of $3,848), though it earned an OK “B” CinemaScore from its opening weekend audience that was 56% female and 65% over 25.
 
Joe Wright’s espionage film Hanna actually out performed expectations and almost managed to top Arthur in spite of being in more than 700 fewer theaters. An action film that stars a young girl (Saoirse Ronan), Hanna attracted an audience that 53% male and 52% over 25. Hanna was the only widely-released new film to win critical approval (71% positive on Rotten Tomatoes), and in spite of a poor C+ CinemaScore has the potential to hang around for awhile.
 
The inspirational Bethany Hamilton biopic Soul Surfer about a competitive surfer who returns to action after losing an arm in a shark attack also outperformed modest expectations, earning an estimated $11.1 million and receiving a rare A+ rating from its largely female (80%) audience of mothers and daughters (56% of the crowd was under25).
 
FilmDistrict, the new company that produced Soul Surfer, also released the horror film Insidious last week—and Insidious, which cost just $1.5 million to produce, had an extraordinary hold for a horror movie, falling just 27% and earning $9.7 million for the weekend and bringing its cumulative to $27 million.
 
Insidious did better in its second week than Your Highness, the “R” rated comedy that daringly mixes medieval action with frequent anachronistic 21st Century sexual references. Not surprisingly 58% of the opening weekend audience for Your Highness was male and 55% was over 25. Saturday night attendance was down 9% from Friday, which along with a “C” CinemaScore and pitiful reviews (only 25% positive) indicate that Your Highness is headed straight for the dustbin of cinematic history.
 
The science fiction film Source Code fell just 39%, a decline that was matched by Limitless and bettered by The Lincoln Lawyer, which dropped just 32.6%.  But these films in the bottom half of the top ten weren’t declining from strong enough performances to make much of difference in the overall performance of the top ten. Next week with the animated comedy Rio opening is probably the best opportunity before May to break the box office losing streak. Rio opened overseas this weekend and earned $55 million, by far the best performance of the year so far.