The top two movies this week showed a huge disconnect between critical reviews and audience satisfaction. Case in point, Hop. The Easter tale about an adorable rabbit who is the heir to the Easter Bunny empire was soundly denounced by most critics, earning a measly 24% on Rotten Tomatoes.
However, that didn’t scare audiences away from the film, which handily won the weekend box office, earning about $38.1 million. Considering the fact that Easter is still several weeks away, and audiences loved the film (those polled by Cinemascore gave it an A-), this film could end up earning quite a bit of money. This is the second film from new studio Illumination Entertainment. They released Despicable Me in 2010.
The feat is also impressive because there is not a lot of star power behind the film, which is a mix of live action and animation. James Marsden is not exactly a household name, and kids don’t know or care who Russell Brand is.
A big surprise to a lot of box office prognosticators was the under-performance of Source Code. Many of us thought it was a shoo-in for first place, particularly since it is one of the most well-reviewed films of the year. However, audiences didn’t agree, and gave the film a B on Cinemascore. When it was all said and done, Source Code made about $15.1 million, just under half the cost of its budget.
Third place went to the haunted house film Insidious, making $13.5 million. It had been widely reported that the film only cost somewhere around $1 million to make, but director James Wan took to his twitter Sunday to make sure everyone knew that it was actually $800,000.
Holdovers rounded out the top five this week. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules was number four with $10.4 million, and Limitless was number five with $9.4 million. The biggest loser of the week was Sucker Punch. The film plummeted 68% in its second week in release.
The controversial and heavily advertised re-cut of The King’s Speech (it was cut to get a PG-13 rating) didn’t seem to drum up any interest from families who had ruled out the R-rated film. It made about $1.2 million.
