Animated caper about the Easter bunny overleaps Source Code and Insidious, while bowdlerised King's Speech fails to charm kids
Universal's pre-Easter release of family movie Hop scored the biggest US launch of the year so far on an estimated $38.1m, but it remains to be seen whether the numbers will hold up when the studio issues confirmed results later on Monday. If not, Paramount's animated morsel Rango will remain the standard bearer following that $38.1m debut back on 4 March.
Hop features the voice of Russell Brand, an irritant who appropriately enough is about to spread like a rash over the US charts. Next weekend Warner Bros releases the British comedian's latest vehicle in the form of its Arthur remake. I understand from a business sense why a creatively castrated industry feels the need to flock to remakes, but they rarely offer viewing pleasure. And with all respect to Jennifer Garner and the great Helen Mirren (and Greta Gerwig from Greenberg), this is sacrilegious: nothing can top Dudley Moore, Liza Minnelli and John Gielgud in the original ? which, for the record, grossed a startling $95m in 1981.
When Duncan Jones's sci-fi drama Moon did the rounds several years ago the British director and son of David Bowie rightly earned a name as one to watch. By many accounts he has followed up with a worthy effort in Source Code. That said, Source Code opened through Summit Entertainment in second place on $15.1m and will need good word of mouth to stick around.
Look at the top 10 and you will see a healthy representation of independents, ie movies that were financed and put together outside the studio system and have either been acquired by distributors or, in the case of Insidious, a new enterprise called FilmDistrict. UK super-producer Graham King and his GK Films business partner and Texan oil billionaire Tim Headington launched the enterprise last year in association with a Sony veteran called Peter Schlessel, one of the most widely respected people in the business.
They hired Bob Berney as the head of theatrical distribution ? another good move as Berney is the renowned mastermind behind leftfield successes including The Passion of the Christ, Monster and Whale Rider ? and picked up rights to Insidious. The old-school horror from Saw creators James Wan and Leigh Whannell is said to be in the vein of Poltergeist and premiered at the Toronto international film festival last autumn. It was financed independently, with UK sales agent Stuart Ford among others playing a large part in that process. The movie marked FilmDistrict's maiden launch and opened in third place on $13.5m, which bodes well because there's nothing like it out there right now. FilmDistrict is hitting the ground running and returns to the fray next weekend with its second release, the true-life drama Soul Surfer.
And finally to the Weinsteins, who re-released The King's Speech as a PG-13 movie over the weekend after excising a few F-bombs from one of many speech therapy scenes in the original version involving Colin Firth as the stammering future king of England. The US ratings authority was satisfied that malleable young minds would be adequately protected from the vagaries of the English language ? the same authority by the way that is happy to allow malleable young minds to watch PG-13 rated movies about torture and gore each week ? and the movie opened in 1,011 theatres. That's a pretty big release but the $1.2m gross was not what Harvey would have been looking for. He made a big song and dance about wanting children to see this inspirational story of triumph over adversity, but they've already seen the R-rated version that grossed more than $130m. Given the choice, children would rather watch the PG-13 Insidious.
North American top 10, 1-3 April 2011
Hop, $38.1m
Source Code, $15.1m
Insidious, $13.5m
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules, $10.2m. Total: $38.4m
Limitless, $9.4m. Total: $55.6m
The Lincoln Lawyer, $7.1m. Total: $39.6m
Sucker Punch, $6.1m. Total: $29.9m
Rango, $4.6m. Total: $113.8m
Paul, $4.3m. Total: $31.9m
Battle: Los Angeles, $3.5m. Total: $78.5m
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