You say SLUMP, I say 'smaller movies with legs'. Why the first months of 2011 were good for box office, good for studios, and good for moviegoers.

If Fast Five and/or Thor fail to open to $50 million or more, then I'll start to worry. If Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides doesn't open anywhere near $100 million and doesn't clear $250 million, I'll start to be concerned. If Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows part II grosses under $260 million, I'll maybe start panicking. But until any of those things occur, let's stop whining about the week-to-week comparisons at the box office. We're not in a 'slump'. Yes, weekend-to-weekend figures have been consistently down behind last year's respective weekends for much of 2011. But when you look at the numbers on a movie-by-movie basis, you actually notice something wonderful. A flood of mid-budget, adult-skewed movies have opened at or above expectations, and many of them have had the kind of legs you just don't see anymore. That's the Hollywood we claim we want, so why are we complaining?

Weekend Box Office (04/10/11): Hop stays on top, four new releases cannibalize each other, Insidious pulls stunning hold.

For the second weekend in a row, Universal's Hop was the number one film of the weekend. The Easter Bunny animated epic dropped 42% in its second weekend, grossing $21.6 million. That's a bit heavy for an animated film, but the lack of school for many kids has meant decent midweek showings, draining the 'must see on the weekend' factor. Regardless, the $63 million-budgeted film has already grossed $68 million in the first ten days. If it can fend off Rio next weekend (which is basically being sold by Fox as 'Angry Birds: the Movie'), it positions itself for a strong fourth weekend, which is of course Easter itself. Frankly, it will be fun to watch, as agnostic, atheist, and/or not-Christian families will likely check out Hop over that holiday weekend, while the more overtly Christian families will theoretically opt for Tyler Perry's Madea's Big Happy Family. This is another big win for Illumination and a solid hit for Universal. $100 million seems guaranteed and beyond that is mainly a matter of demo competition (a bunch of kid-friendly films over the next month) and whether it can keep screens as summer starts. As for those who read last week's roundup, I did see the film that Sunday, and it's relatively mediocre but utterly harmless. My three-year old enjoyed it, which counts for something, and it does make an effort to go in a different direction than many other talking-animal films (too bad it literally gives away the ending in the first scene of the film... WHY???).

Review: Hanna

Hanna
2011
110 minutes
rated PG-13

by Scott Mendelson

Joe Wright's Hanna is so detached and so mechanically cold, that the viewer has no real stake in the narrative. It features, at its core, two opposing forces, both of questionable morality, who pursue each other all over Europe with a reckless and relentless abandon. If you have any sympathy at all, it won't be for the young assassin or her ice-cold nemesis, but rather for all the innocent saps who get killed along the way. The picture may be a stylish reworking of "Little Red Riding Hood", but at its core it is detached, resulting in a lack of investment. Despite the arty pretense and polished cast, Joe Wright's action debut is almost as hollow and junky as the kind of low-IQ mainstream thriller that it attempts to surpass.

Hanna gets a trailer.

'focus' Hanna - Trailer 1 @ Yahoo! Video

Well, doesn't this look like deliciously trashy fun? If I may speak pruriently for a moment, I'd forgotten how hot Cate Blanchett looks as a redhead. Otherwise, this looks like a somewhat generic premise, but with a pretty solid cast. Saoirse Ronan was pretty terrific in the otherwise quite flawed The Lovely Bones, and Eric Bana is always watchable when he plays something other than a brooding hero. We've got Olivia Williams and Tom Hallander for seasoning. Toss in Blanchett as a somewhat more devious 'Pamela Landey'-type character, and this Joe Wright-helmed thriller looks quite amusing. It opens on April 8th, 2011. As always, we'll see...

Scott Mendelson