HOP STAYS #1 AT THE BOX OFFICE

4/11/2011 10:39 AM ET

(RTTNews) - In a weekend with an eclectic set of new releases that struggled at the box office, animated film "Hop" easily finished atop the charts for a second consecutive weekend with $21.70 million. The only new release to earn $5,000 per theater was sports drama "Soul Surfer," as the others, "Arthur," "Hanna" and "Your Highness," all had difficulty tapping into their target demographics.

After its second straight weekend as the top movie at the box office, "Hop" has now brought in an impressive $68 million domestically. Though it should start seeing a sizeable decrease with competition for family audiences coming up, "Hop" is already a rare commercial success for an animated distributor outside of Buena Vista and Paramount. With a relatively modest production budget of $63 million, Universal's "Hop" should be able to cross $100 million domestically and could even see some decent overseas figures as well.
Not doing nearly as well over the weekend was the widest release "Arthur," a remake of a popular Dudley Moore comedy from the early 1980s. The 2011 edition got off to a dubious start at the box office by earning $12.61 million over the weekend at 3,276 total theaters - good for a paltry per theater average of just $3,848. Unless "Arthur" really turns it around in the next couple of weekends, it will end up a fairly disappointing release for distributor Warner Brothers, not to mention another example of how hard it is to market British-based humor to American audiences.
Doing slightly better in a smaller release was action-thriller "Hanna," which brought in $12.32 million at 700 fewer theaters than "Arthur." Though its per theater average of $4,861 isn't exactly eye-popping, it also isn't terrible for a quirky, somewhat limited action release in the middle of April. With very positive critical reviews, "Hanna" could even gain some strength in the coming weekends and end up as a quiet success for distributor Focus Features.
But while "Hanna" and "Arthur" really struggled to find the wide audience they were appealing to, sports drama "Soul Surfer" got off to a surprisingly strong start for distributor TriStar. "Soul Surfer" racked up $11.10 million over the weekend at just 2,214 theaters; only last week's "Insidious" has earned more money over a weekend in 2011 with a release of less than 2,500 venues.
"Soul Surfer" tells the story of a young female surfer who came back to the sport after losing her arm in a shark attack when she was 13 years old. Though it seemed that "Soul Surfer" was aimed more for niche audiences, it now appears that the story is resonating with a much wider audience than expected and it should end up as a nice earner for TriStar.
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