Hop bounces its way to big box office win

hop

Russell Brand’s Easter-themed movie takeover proved more successful than any of us imagined it would be, as Hop this weekend became the year’s biggest opening movie.

Debuting with a record-setting $38m, the fluffy family comedy beat this year’s previous big earner Rango by just under $1m.

On the opposite end of the audience spectrum – i.e. those older than five – Duncan Jones’ sophomore sci-fi Source Code also came out trumps, opening in second place with $15m.

More importantly, it confirmed that Jones is far more than a one trick pony, Source Code matching the Brit director’s debut Moon for thoughtful sci-fi storytelling.

In the rest of the chart, horror Insidious (from the guys behind the first Saw ) was third with $13m, last week’s number one Diary Of A Wimpy Kid 2 fell to fourth ($10.2m) and Bradley Cooper’s Limitless rounded out the top five with $9.4m.

Last week’s box office hold-overs came in the form of The Lincoln Lawyer in sixth ($7m), a struggling Sucker Punch in seventh ($6m), Rango in eighth ($7.6m) and Paul in ninth ($4.3m).

Completing the top ten was Jonathan Liebesman’s divisive alien invasion flick Battle: Los Angeles , which added $3.5m to its money pot. That’s a total of $78m in the US alone – do we smell a possible franchise?

Josh Winning has worn a lot of hats over the years. Contributing Editor at Total Film, writer for SFX, and senior film writer at the Radio Times. Josh has also penned a novel about mysteries and monsters, is the co-host of a movie podcast, and has a library of pretty phenomenal stories from visiting some of the biggest TV and film sets in the world. He would also like you to know that he "lives for cat videos..." Don't we all, Josh. Don't we all.