'Hop' poised to jump straight to the top

By Sarah Sluis

Releasing well in advance of the Easter holiday, Hop will spring into 3,577 theatres and shows all signs of landing in first place. Critic Frank Lovece rated it a "Santa Clause 2.6," which is pretty close to the terrible Santa Clause 3. He also bristled at the movie's message of nepotism, since a lazy heir triumphs over the underdog hard worker. The film's mix of live action and CG historically results in a very kid-specific following, with poor reviews having no effect on the great box office (See director Tim Hill's Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties and Alvin and the Chipmunks 1&2). Hop should accrue at least $25 million in its opening weekend.

In retrospect, it's surprising someone didn't turn Groundhog's Day into an action film sooner. In Source Code (2,961 theatres), Jake Gyllenhaal plays an army operative who must relive over and over the final minutes before a terrorist attack explodes a train. The exercise is supposed to give him time to figure out what went wrong, but he also finds time to fall in love with a girl, too. Could love save the day? Critic Maitland McDonagh pronounces the sci-fi actioner a "good ride" that's "slick, shiny, sweetly gratifying and clever enough that you don't have to feel dumb for enjoying it." Adult fare has been lacking in recent weeks, so Source Code should do well, perhaps in the high teen millions.

An F-word free The King's Speech will make its PG-13 debut in 1,011 theatres. Will the change in rating make much of a difference? I haven't seen any ads proclaiming the movie's toned-down rating, but maybe I'm just the wrong audience. Currently, the Oscar-winning drama is hovering just outside of the top ten, so the rating change and added marketing could be enough to launch it back onto the box-office radar screen.

A back-to-basics haunted-house movie, Insidious (2,408 theatres) comes from Saw creators James Wan and Leigh Whannell. Their "trust in human emotion" and focus on "two ordinary parents [taking] their stand against God only knows to save their child" pays off, according to McDonagh. Though it's not a perfect example of the haunted-house film, she gives the duo credit for "keeping the atmosphere thick with menace as long as they do."

The Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Film, In a Better World, will open in 4 theatres. The drama juxtaposes violence among Danish schoolboys with violence in Kenya, which critic Erica Abeel sums up as "a deeply involving film unafraid of raw, visceral emotion, a film that for once thinks almost too big."

On Monday, we'll measure Hop's leaps and see how close Source Code followed. Insidious may surprise, given horror films' strong opening weekends, and it will also be the first test for newbie distributor FilmDistrict. Perhaps the biggest surprise will be The King's Speech, which has already grossed $138 million with its R rating. Are there any more viewers out there?