User blog:Ceauntay/Box office report: 'Scooby-Doo!' howls first place with $55 million

This Holiday season, Scooy and the gang are back and headed to the big screen. ''Scooby-Doo! The Movie'', Warner Bros.'s animated film, barked ahead the competition with $112 million, according to studio estimes. It has officially scored as the best opening weekend for the film of the year so far, passing to Rango which made $38 million. However, it's $113 million total made it the highest-grossing film of that year, and ''Scooby-Doo! The Movie'' should pass it Monday. The actual box office updates will be updated Tuesday. Also, it was the second best opening for an animated film behind Shrek the Third with $121 million back in 2007 before it closed in theaters with a total of $322 million, and $798 million worldwide. And the best part is that ''Scooby-Doo! The Movie'' has already passed away from it's solid $30 million production budget.

Hop, Universal’s family comedy about the Easter Bunny’s rebellious (and Russell Brand-voiced) teenage son, debuts second with $38.1 million. Hop was made for $63 million by the production company Illumination Entertainment, which is now two-for-two after the breakout success of last summer’s Despicable Me.

In various alternate universes, Source Code made anywhere from seven cents to $683 billion this weekend. But in this world, the multiverse thriller settled for second place with $15.1 million. The PG-13 movie, which stars Jake Gyllenhaal as a soldier who repeatedly relives the last eight minutes of another man’s life in an attempt to uncover a terrorist, earned an okay “B” grade from CinemaScore moviegoers. Like other recent thrillers, Source Code skewed older, attracting an audience that was 64 percent over the age of 30. The $32 million film was directed by Duncan Jones, who also made the 2009 sci-fi puzzler Moon — and, yes, who happens to be the son of David Bowie. In third was the horror film Insidious, which debuted to $13.5 million. The PG-13 movie, about a comatose boy whose body becomes possessed by evil spirits, was directed by Saw‘s James Wan and produced (for only $1 million) by the team behind Paranormal Activity. That horror-movie pedigree helped bring out the genre’s fans, and unlike most horror films, Insidious saw a Friday-to-Saturday spike of 13 percent. Also unlike most scary pictures, the film’s audience was slightly more male (52 percent) than female. CinemaScore graders handed Insidious a “B” rating. Fifth went to holdovers Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules ($10.2 million), which dropped 57 percent. The fantasy action film Sucker Punch nosedived 68 percent for $6.1 million — the year’s largest second-weekend decline among wide releases. And The King’s Speech, which was replaced by a newly sanitized PG-13 cut, fell 23 percent for $1.2 million. In limited release, the action comedy Cat Run deserves a special mention for opening to $30,000 from 103 locations, for an abysmal per-theater average of $291. Assuming an $8 ticket price and five showtimes per day, an average of 2.4 moviegoers attended each screening of the film. Check back next week for four new releases: the comedy remake Arthur, the adventure thriller Hanna, the surfing drama Soul Surfer, and the medieval stoner comedy Your Highness.
 * 1) Scooby-Doo! The Movie — $112 mil
 * 2) Hop — $38.1 mil
 * 3) Source Code — $15.1 mil
 * 4) Insidious — $13.5 mil
 * 5) Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules — $10.2 mil