"Jumper" leaps to top of North American box office

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -
The sci-fi thriller "Jumper" leaped
to the No. 1 spot at the North American box office on Sunday as
moviegoers ignored critics' dire warnings for a second weekend.

The movie, in which Hayden Christensen plays a man who is
able to "teleport" around the world, earned an estimated $27.2
million for the Friday-to-Sunday period, distributor 20th
Century Fox said.

It fended off three other rookies. The urban dance sequel
"Step Up 2 the Streets" opened at No. 2 with $19.7 million for
the three-day period, followed by the children's literary
adaptation "The Spiderwick Chronicles" with $19.1 million. The
romance "Definitely, Maybe" opened at No. 5 with $9.7 million,
failing to rouse much Valentine's Day passion.

Last week's champ, "Fool's Gold," fell to No. 4 with $13.1
million. After 10 days, the romantic adventure starring Matthew
McConaughey and Kate Hudson, has earned $42 million. It was
released by Warner Bros., a unit of Time Warner Inc.

Both "Fool's Gold" and "Jumper" were eviscerated by
critics, but moviegoers evidently warmed to their storylines or
advertising campaigns.

"Jumper," directed by Doug Liman ("The Bourne Identity"),
cost in the $80-million range to make, said Fox. About
two-thirds of the audience was male moviegoers under 25,
according to first-day polling data supplied by the News
Corp-owned studio. The film was based on Steven Gould's
young-adult sci-fi novels "Jumper" and "Reflex."

"Step Up 2 the Streets" revisits the formula that made
"Step Up" a surprise hit in 2006: urban street dancing,
relatively unknown buff actors and cutting-edge hip-hop music.
Both films were released by Walt Disney Co.

Paramount Pictures' "The Spiderwick Chronicles," following
the exploits of three children and a menagerie of goblins and
fairies, pulled in a crowd that was 80 percent families, said
the Viacom Inc-owned studio. Budgeted at just over $90 million,
the movie is based on the best-selling short books by Tony
DiTerlizzi and Holly Black.

Young women made up about two-thirds of the audience for
"Definitely, Maybe," a $24 million project starring Ryan
Reynolds and Isla Fisher, said Universal Pictures, a unit of
General Electric Co's NBCUniversal.

(Reporting by Dean Goodman; editing by Cynthia Osterman)

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