Weekend Box Office: April 1-3

Courtesy of Box Office Mojo:

1.  Hop -  $38.1 million

2.  Source Code - $15 million

3.  Insidious - $13.4 million

4.  Diary of a Wimpy Kid:  Rodrick Rules - $10.2 million

5.  Limitless - $9.4 million

6.  The Lincoln Lawyer - $7 million

7.  Sucker Punch - $6 million

8.  Rango - $4.5 million

9.  Paul - $4.3 million

10.  Battle Los Angeles - $3.5 million

So apparently, people like Easter movies now.  Hop, the story of a Russell Brand-voiced runaway rabbit who'd rather be a rock star drummer than take his rightful place as the Easter Bunny, easily won the weekend with $38.1 million.  That's not as good as the opening weekend of Illumination Entertainment's previous (and much better) film, Despicable Me, which opened with $54 million last summer, but it was still an impressive opening. 

As far as the movies for the grownups, Source Code, the Jake Gyllenhaal sci-fi thriller opened a decent but unspectacular $15 million.  Insidious, the latest evil-kid horror film from Saw director James Wan and produced by the folks behind the Paranormal Activity films had a great weekend, earning $13.4 million.  I say "great weekend" because the film reportedly had a budget of about $1.5 million.   

Last week's champ, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules, dropped 57% and down to fourth place with $10.2 million.  That movie already raced past its reported $21 million budget last weekend, so I don't think anyone is worried about it at this point.

Anyone looking for some quiet time this weekend could have just attended a showing of Sucker Punch, because those theaters were mostly empty. The Zack Snyder fantasy film crashed and burned this weekend, dropping a horrendous 68% and finishing the weekend with only $46 million.

An F-bomb-free version of The King's Speech also opened this weekend, earning $1.1 million. 

It was another quiet weekend at the box office, down 30% from this same weekend last year when Clash of the Titans ruled the box office with some bad 3D to the tune of $61 million. 

Russell Brand invades the box office again next week in the remake of Arthur (and again I ask, why in the hell did they need to remake this?), which will compete against the fantasy spoof Your Highness, as well as the kiddie assassin thriller Hanna, and shark-attack film Soul Surfer.