Box Office Actuals: April 8-10, 2011

Via Box Office Mojo, The Numbers, and other sources:

Russell Brand earned 2 of the Top 3 positions at the April 8-10, 2011 weekend box office rankings, both in animated ("Hop") and non-animated but slightly inebriated form ("Arthur"). With actual receipts counted, "Hop", where Brand voices a young Easter Bunny in waiting, retained the #1 spot handily over 4 new releases - two of which over-performed expectations while two vastly underperformed for their studios.

Initially, Brand was reported to have pulled a rare 1-2 punch at the top of the rankings. However, when final numbers came in, his remake of the 1981 Dudley Moore comedy classic slipped to #3 behind the much buzzed about action film 'Hanna". Estimates were off nearly $500k as "Arthur" seems to have drawn quite poorly on Sunday. "Arthur" banked $12.2 million in its opening frame, approximately $8 million below studio hopes and expectations.

The movie of the weekend seemed to become "Hanna". Directing an action/thriller for the first time, Joe Wright had an industry-respected cast of Cate Blanchett, Saorise Ronan, and Eric Bana deliver a surprisingly strong weekend return. As critics came on board and word-of-mouth spread, "Hanna"'s buzz grew through the weekend and clearly the 16-year old trained assassin storyline struck a nerve. It shall be interesting to see how "Hanna" performs when "Scream 4" seems to reflect its only competition. "Hanna" may see a modest decline in Week 2 and position itself as a surprise hit before the summer blockbusters roll out.

Estimates are often over-reported and "Soul Surfer"'s #4 opening was reduced down about $500k when total figures were calculated. With a $10.6 million dollar opening and a budget now reported as $18 million, studio on the rise FilmDistrict will come out of the gates 2-for-2 in terms of having low budget films turn domestic profit. "Soul Surfer", a film embraced by religious groups and featuring the film debut of Country music superstar Carrie Underwood, tells the well-documented story of surfer Bethany Hamilton who, as a teenager, lost an arm in a shark attack while surfing. Audiences reportedly loved the film as it attained a rare "A+" from CinemaScore's opening audience attendance survey.

A Christian-themed inspirational sports story and a horror tale featuring a comatose child targeted by demonic spirits may seem like unlikely bedfellows but they are the first two films distributed by FilmDistrict and fall back-to-back in the rankings. "Insidious", the horror film in question, continues to score impressive numbers and earned a strong $9.4 million in its second weekend. Declining just 29%, "Insidious" saw the smallest decline of any film in the Top 10, a rarity for a horror film.

The highly anticipated and then enthusiastically ignored "Your Highness" was received with a tepid $9.36 million opening. Bad word-of-mouth, the oddity of the entire project, and the apparent lack of mainstream appeal for Danny McBride as a lead contributed to the fall. Universal felt that McBride's rising fame from HBO's "Eastbound & Down" and the support casting of James Franco and Natalie Portman would deliver a big weekend, but seemingly not many cared. Given a $50 million budget, "Your Highness" may earn half of that by the end of its run.

"Red State" reports a total haul from Kevin Smith's traveling roadshow tour and 4:20 comes early after the cut:


"Red State", which director Kevin Smith has been touring with on a traveling road show, finally had its tour earnings confirmed and reported an $83k weekend in Los Angeles bringing total receipts of $852k. Our own Joey Magidson has an exclusive early look at the film here.

Bollywood romantic comedy "Thank You" pocketed a fair $248k at 92 locations, placing it about on average with other Bollywood platform-style releases.

Easily the most eye-opening debut of the weekend was the Chicago opening of "Evil Bong 3D". The uber-low budgeted Full Moon Pictures effort banked $25k and claims that it will receive a wide release on April 20. That's a Wednesday, so we shall see.

Elsewhere, Oscar darkhorse "Meek's Cutoff" earned approximately $20k in a 2-screen opening and the latest IMAX offering, "Born To Be Wild 3-D" scored a nice $856k opening weekend.

THE WEEKEND BREAKDOWN

#1 Film - "Hop", earned $21.3 million

Last Year's #1 Film at this time: "Clash Of The Titans", earned $26.6 million

Biggest Per Screen Average: "Red State", $82,395 at 1 location ($852 thousand)

Worst Per Screen Average (50+ Sites): "Game", $263 at 63 locations ($16,966,
$128 thousand cumulative)

Largest Increase (50+ Sites): "Drive Angry", +288.5%

Steepest Decline (50+ Sites): "Game", -79.8%

Films Earning More Than $1m for the weekend: 16

Films Which Surpassed $100m: N/A

Films Which Surpassed Reported Budget This Weekend: Hop.

The Top 40, with other notables!

TW	LW	DAY	FILM (STUDIO)	WKD	TOTAL	% CHG
1	1	10	Hop (Universal)	$21.7m	$67.8m	-43.3
2	N	3	Hanna (Focus)	$12.4m	$12.4m	New
3	N	3	Arthur (Warner Bros.)	$12.2m	$12.2m	New
4	N	3	Soul Surfer (TriStar/FilmDistrict)	$10.6m	$10.6m	New
5	3	10	Insidious (FilmDistrict)	$9.4m	$26.7m	-29.4
6	N	3	Your Highness (Universal)	$9.4m	$9.4m	New
7	2	10	Source Code (Summit)	$8.7m	$28.2m	-41.6
8	5	24	Limitless (Relativity)	$5.5m	$64.1m	-41.3
9	4	17	Diary Of A Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules (20th Century Fox)	$4.8m	$45.3m	-52.5
10	6	24	The Lincoln Lawyer (Lionsgate)	$4.3m	$46.1m	-37.3
11	8	38	Rango (Paramount)	$2.3m	$117.5m	-48.9
12	7	17	Sucker Punch (Warner Bros.)	$2.1m	$34.0m	-65.1
13	9	24	Paul (Universal)	$1.7m	$35.1m	-59.0
14	10	31	Battle: Los Angeles (Sony)	$1.5m	$81.2m	-56.8
15	13	31	Jane Eyre (Focus)	$1.2m	$5.1m	-4.7
16	15	24	Win Win (Fox Searchlight)	$1.2m	$3.4m	+1.0
17	11	38	The Adjustment Bureau (Universal)	$877k	$60.1m	-59.1
18	N	3	Born To Be Wild IMAX (Warner Bros.)	$856k	$856k	New
19	N	3	No Eres Tu, Soy Yo (Lionsgate)	$589k	$589k	New
20	27	31	Red Riding Hood (Warner Bros.)	$511k	$36.7m	-71.2
21	15	10	The King's Speech PG-13 (Weinstein Co.)	$503k	$2.1m	-55.6
22	23	52	Unknown (Warner Bros.)	$276k	$63.1m	+20.8
23	16	38	Beastly (CBS)	$271k	$27.3m	-67.0
24	17	45	Hall Pass (Warner Bros./New Line)	$267k	$44.3m	-64.6
25	18	59	Just Go With It (Sony)	$265k	$101.9m	-58.1
26	N	3	Thank You (UTV)	$248k	$248k	New
27	21	138	Tangled (Buena Vista)	$221k	$199.4m	-34.4
28	19	59	Gnomeo And Juliet (Walt Disney)	$212k	$97.3m	-50.7
29	22	110	True Grit (Paramount)	$210k	$170.8m	-28.8
30	24	45	Of Gods And Men (Sony Classics)	$181k	$2.7m	-17.2
31	26	52	Big Mommas... (20th Century Fox)	$153k	$37.5m	-23.8
32	33	17	Potiche (Music Box)	$139k	$422k	+23.6
33	20	31	Mars Needs Moms (Buena Vista)	$118k	$20.7m	-65.9
34	30	31	Certified Copy (IFC)	$110k	$867k	-24.5
35	29	87	The Green Hornet (Sony)	$102k	$98.7m	-32.9
36	27	52	I Am Number Four (Buena Vista)	$99k	$54.0m	-50.5
37	25	59	Cedar Rapids (Fox Searchlight)	$96k	$6.7m	-54.1
38	31	388	Hubble 3D (Warner Bros.)	$95k	$23.6m	-27.5
39	42	24	Bill Cunningham New York (Zeitgeist)	$88k	$418k	+27.4
40	32	31	Kill The Irishman (Anchor Bay)	$86k	$840k	-24.0

BUBBLING UNDER INCREASES AND OPENINGS:

41. “Red State” (SModcast), $82k, $852k total, FIRST REPORT

42. “Drive Angry” (Summit), $59k, $10.7m total, +288.5%

46. “In A Better World” (Sony Classics), $45k, $92k total, +35.7%

48. “Winter In Wartime” (Sony Classics), $38k, $127k total, +104.6%

49. "I Am" (Paladin), $38k, $363k total, +11.0