Will Ferrell, Kevin Hart Take On Alien Toon At The Box Office: It’s Gonna Be Close
The play for students on spring break continues this weekend with the R-rated Will Ferrell-Kevin Hart comedy Get Hard in 3,175 theaters facing off with DreamWorks Animation’s Home from 20th Century Fox in 3,707. Each is expecting grosses from the low to mid $30Ms, making it a tough call for No. 1, however, some believe that Get Hard might have an edge with a $35M-$40M opening. Both titles launch Thursday night with previews, with Home having the extra boost from 3D showtimes.
Rentrak Theatrical reports that 15% of schools K-12 will be out with 14% of all colleges off.
It won’t be surprising though if Home pulls ahead of Get Hard. This weekend’s face-off is slightly reminiscent of the time when Warner Bros. and 20th Century Fox squared off exactly four years ago in the exact same frame, March 25-27, 2011. Warner had the Zack Snyder fanboy film Sucker Punch (opening $19M), which the studio had been promoting for some time, however, 20th Century Fox nabbed No. 1 out of that film’s hands with its family franchise title Diary Of A Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules ($23.8M). Currently, Home is far ahead of Get Hard in Fandango’s advance ticket sales.
Per tracking earlier this week, Get Hard was showing strong interest among guys over-under 25, while Home was showing slightly more interest from women (which makes sense as moms make the decision when it comes to the kids going to the movies).
It’s been over a year since we last saw Will Ferrell on screen, the last being December 2013’s Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues which opened over five days ($39.5M) before finaling at $127.4M. Ferrell’s fare tends to play in the summer, and the last time he went wide in the spring was 2007’s Blades Of Glory which opened to $33M and finaled at $118.6M stateside. Kevin Hart’s last movie was January’s R-rated The Wedding Ringer co-starring Josh Gad which bowed to $20.6M and currently has a running cume of $64.2M.
Home is DWA’s only title this year with Kung Fu Panda 3 scheduled to bow on March 18, 2016. The film, which carries a reported production cost of $130M, posted a great launch overseas in nine territories racking up $20.1M from 4,659 screens. Home tells the story of cute alien Oh who befriends an adventurous girl named Tip.
Get Hard premiered earlier this month at SXSW, which has continually been a haven for launching edgy studio comedies (in addition 20th Century Fox’s Melissa McCarthy action comedy Spy previewed there as well as Universal’s upcoming Judd Apatow film Trainwreck starring Amy Schumer and Bill Hader). In conjunction with the film’s release, Will Ferrell got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame yesterday, which turned out to be a riotous ceremony where the SNL alum thanked Jesus…his bodyguard. His speech is below:
In its second frame, Lionsgate’s The Divergent Series: Insurgent is looking at third with an estimated grab of $23M, about 55% down from its $52.3M opening. Through yesterday, Insurgent counts $59.2M at the domestic B.O.
Also, looking to carve a spot in the top 10 chart is RADiUS-TWC and Dimension Films’ 1,200 theater expansion of horror film It Follows. The David Robert Mitchell film about a 19-year old girl who is haunted following a sexual encounter is looking at $2M-$3M per industry estimates. Currently in play at 32 theaters, It Follows has collected $566K at the domestic B.O.
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