Second week at the top for 'Hop'

By Sarah Sluis

The animated Easter bunny picture Hop enjoyed its second week in first place, dropping 42% to $21.7 million. Its performance is on par with March's Rango, but Hop will probably do better financially due to the live-action/CG hybrid's lower budget. With two more weekends until Easter, Hop should continue to play well but will have tough competition next week when Rio, which opened #1 in a number of international markets this weekend, debuts in the U.S. this Friday.

Russell Brand provides the voice of the bunny in Hop, but his other new release, Arthur, opened to a disappointing $12.6 million. In comparison, Get Him to the Greek, which featured Brand as a co-star, opened to $17 million last year. Critics were not kind to the tale of a lovable billionaire alcoholic, giving it just 25% positive Rotten Tomatoes rating. Brand, a beloved U.K. star, has been trying to break out in America for several years. If the movie plays well in the U.K., Arthur's flat performance stateside will confirm that Brand just can't cross over in a live-action vehicle--although I don't understand why, because I find him extremely funny.

Hanna opened third with $12.3 million, an impressive opening for an assassin film intended for a more arty, indie crowd. Focus Features went for the same auteur action formula with last fall's The American, which opened to $13.1 million with a considerably bigger star on the marquee, George Clooney. Teen star Saoirse Ronan will be seen next in The Hobbit, if you believe what you see on IMDB (she hasn't been confirmed in the role yet).

Following closely in fourth place, Soul Surfer rode in with $11.1 million. The largely young, female audience raved about the film, giving the religious-themed sports picture an A+ CinemaScore rating. The areas in the U.S. farthest from the coasts did the best, including Nashville and Oklahoma City.

The loser of this week's quartet of new releases was Your Highness, which finished with $9.5 million. The stoner adventure film underperformed, earning just a fraction of the $23 million opening weekend attained by director David Gordon Green's last comedy, Pineapple Express.

One spot above Your Highness, haunted house movie Insidious did what horror movies almost never do. Instead of dropping 50-70%, the movie's audience went down just 27% to $9.7 million, another win for distributor FilmDistrict, which picked up the movie for a song and spent heavily on marketing.

Among specialty releases, IMAX film Born to be Wild made the biggest splash, earning $850,000 from 206 locations. The well-reviewed Meek's Cutoff proved to be more of a critic's gem than an audience favorite, settling with just $11,000 per screen on two theatres, a modest debut for a film with a 86% positive Rotten Tomatoes rating among critics.

This Friday, American audiences will be able to catch Rio, which had the highest international debut of the year. Horror fans can white-knuckle it for Scream 4, and historical drama The Conspirator will open in select theatres.