Hop (film)

Live-action cast

• James Marsden as Frederick "Fred" O'Hare, a slacker who is trying to find work^[8][9][10]
  • Coleton Ray as Young Fred^[2]
• Kaley Cuoco as Samantha "Sam" O'Hare,^[2] Fred's sister^[11]
• Gary Cole as Henry O'Hare,^[2] Fred's father^[12]
• Elizabeth Perkins as Bonnie O'Hare,^[2] Fred's mother^[12]
• Tiffany Espensen as Alexandra "Alex" O'Hare,^[2] Fred's adoptive younger sister^[11]
• David Hasselhoff as Himself,^[2] a talent show host^[13]
• Chelsea Handler as Mrs. Beck,^[2] a video game company representative and Fred's interviewer^[13]
• Dustin Ybarra as Cody^[2]
• Russell Brand as a "Hoff Knows Talent" production assistant.^[14]

Voice cast

• Russell Brand as E.B., a teenage rabbit who dreams of becoming a drummer rather than following his father's footsteps to be the next Easter Bunny^[8][15]
  • Django Marsh as Young E.B.^[9]
• Hank Azaria as Carlos, a Spanish-accented chick who is the Easter Bunny's good friend and assistant, secretly scheming to take over Easter Island^[9]
  • Azaria also voices Phil, one of Carlos' assistants^[16]
• Hugh Laurie as Mr. Bunny (credited as "E.B.'s Dad"), E.B.'s father who is the current Easter Bunny^[10][2]
• Hugh Hefner as Voice at Playboy Mansion^[8]

Animation and character design

The animated characters were designed by Peter de Sève.^[17]

The CGI animation and visual effects for the film were produced by Los Angeles-based Rhythm & Hues Studios (R&H).^[18] Ray Chen was the visual effects supervisor, and Andy Arnett was the animation director.^[19] Rhythm & Hues looked at the actions of real rabbits for some scenes. Arnett said, "One of the things that can happen with these faces is that if you don't put a lot of detail into the entire face, their mouths and cheeks can look kind of stiff. So it was important to us to be able to get a lot of flexibility in the face to make them feel alive and fleshy."^[19]

The easter egg factory involved Rhythm & Hues completing 250 computer-generated shots. Chen notes, "It's almost like a little full CG film inside the big film. The biggest challenge there was actually designing the factory. It originally had more of an underground feel with roots and rocks before we settled on something that looked more cathedral-like."^[19]

Promotion and marketing

Universal teamed up with 92 major companies to promote Hop, including Holiday Inn, Krispy Kreme, Lindt, Kraft Foods, The Hershey Company, Build-A-Bear Workshop, Comcast (which acquired Universal's parent company NBCUniversal two months before the film was released), Kodak, Hallmark, HMV, and Burger King. A large range of licensed merchandise was released in connection with the film, including toys, stuffed animals, many sorts of candy, T-shirts, cookie decorating kits, baked goods and other products from Kraft Foods. Some items were available exclusively at Walmart stores.^[22] The premiere of Hop took place at Universal Studios Hollywood on March 27, 2011.^[23]

Video games

A tie-in video game was released for the Nintendo DS alongside the film.^[24][25] On March 29, 2011, a crossover game between Hop and Doodle Jump was released on the App Store for iOS devices.^[26][27] As part of Doodle Jump's in-app purchases, a new level can be selected through naming at Hop's game over screen.^[28]

Home media

Universal Pictures Home Entertainment released Hop on DVD and Blu-ray on March 23, 2012.^[29] Physical copies include featurettes and games,^[30] with a short film Phil's Dance Party.^[31]

Theme parks

Starting in April 2011, characters from the film would appear at Universal Studios Florida and Universal Studios Hollywood for shows and meet and greets to help promote the film.

The film would get its own unit in Universal's Superstar Parade at Universal Studios Florida in May 2012, before it would be replaced by a Secret Life of Pets-themed unit in November 2016.

Box office

Hop earned $108.1 million in the United States and Canada and $80.4 million in other countries, for a worldwide total of $188.5 million.^[6] It was the 39th-highest-grossing film of 2011.^[32] To date, Hop is the lowest-grossing film released by Illumination.^[33]

In the United States and Canada, Hop was released on April 1, 2011.^[5] It earned $11.5 million on its first day. The film debuted earning $38 million across 3,579 theaters.^[34] Its second weekend earnings dropped by 42 percent^[35] to $21.7 million,^[36] and followed by another $11.1 million the third weekend.^[37] Hop left theaters by August 19, 2011, making it the year's 25th-highest-grossing film.^[38]

Critical response

Hop was praised for its animation, music, and performances from the cast, particularly Marsden,^[39][40] but criticism for its humor, pacing and script.^{[39][40][41][42]} The review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reported that out of 137 critic reviews, 25% of them were positive, with an average rating of 4.3/10. The site's consensus states: "It's impressively animated, but Hop's script is so uninspired that not even James Marsden's frantic mugging can give it any bounce."^[43] Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 41 out of 100, based on 23 reviews, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.^[44] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.^[35]

The subplot involving Carlos the Easter Chick was considered to be insensitive to Mexican Americans by one reviewer.^[45][46] Peter Debruge of Variety called it "hilariously un-PC".^[9] Philip French of The Guardian wrote: "It's a combination of the worst movies about trouble in Santa Claus's north pole toy factory and a version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory lethally laced with sugar."^[47] Also writing for The Guardian, Peter Bradshaw gave it one star out of four and called it a "soulless and depressing film, with plasticky production design."^[48]