Weekend Box Office Report: March 27-29 2015

By Kip Mooney • On • In News News 0

BOX OFFICE REPORT 

March 27-29, 2015(estimates from BoxOfficeMojo.com)

TOP 51. Home (54.0 million)2. Get Hard ($34.6 million)3. Insurgent ($22.0 million)4. Cinderella ($17.5 million)5. It Follows ($4.0 million)

Kids really wanted to go Home this weekend. The DreamWorks Animation film opened in first place with an estimated $54 million. That's very good news for the studio, who's desperate for a hit. The movie even outperformed last year's How to Train Your Dragon 2, giving it the studio's biggest debut since 2012's Madagascar 3.

The R-rated Get Hard also did very well, opening solidly in second place with $34.6 million. That makes Kevin Hart's fifth straight movie to debut with $20 million or more. The man's on a roll, though Kevin Hart fatigue could set in any day. The person most excited about this news is likely Will Ferrell, who hasn't had a hit like this since 2010's The Other Guys.

Insurgent continues to fall at the same rate as Divergent, meaning it should be out of the Top 5 in two weeks. Cinderella continues to perform strongly and would have a good shot at being 2015's biggest movie were it not for what's coming next week. But the biggest success story of the weekend is It Follows, the low-budget horror movie that rode great reviews to a very strong expansion. In a perfect world, this clever film would be bigger than any Paranormal Activity movie.

Outside the top 5: - This Weekend's Indie Champ: While We're Young, Noah Baumbach's latest caustic comedy, averaged an extremely impressive $60,500 on only four screens.

- It was also good business for the Oscar-nominated documentary The Salt of the Earth, which averaged $11,225 on four screens.

- Don't bring up Serena to anyone involved, though. The period film, which got disastrous reviews on the festival circuit last year, only made $110,000 on 60 screens. Keep in mind this is a movie with Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, two of the biggest stars on the planet.

Next week: Everyone got out of the way of Furious 7, which will make a gajillion dollars. More accurately, I'll say $105 million. The last three sequels have opened bigger than the previous film, and certain moviegoers will pay tribute to Paul Walker with their wallets. It would have been huge regardless, but I think this pushes it up a bit.

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About Kip Mooney

Kip Mooney
Like many film critics born during and after the 1980s, my hero is Roger Ebert. The man was already the best critic in the nation when he won the Pulitzer in 1975, but his indomitable spirit during and after his recent battle with cancer keeps me coming back to read not only his reviews but his insightful commentary on the everyday. But enough about a guy you know a lot about. I knew I was going to be a film critic—some would say a snob—in middle school, when I had to voraciously defend my position that The Royal Tenenbaums was only a million times better than Adam Sandler’s remake of Mr. Deeds. From then on, I would seek out Wes Anderson’s films and avoid Sandler’s like the plague. Still, I like to think of myself as a populist, and I’ll be just as likely to see the next superhero movie as the next Sundance sensation. The thing I most deplore in a movie is laziness. I’d much rather see movies with big ambitions try and fail than movies with no ambitions succeed at simply existing. I’m also a big advocate of fun-bad movies like The Room and most of Nicolas Cage’s work. In the past, I’ve written for The Dallas Morning News and the North Texas Daily, which I edited for a semester. I also contributed to Dallas-based Pegasus News, which in the circle of life, is now part of The Dallas Morning News, where I got my big break in 2007. Eventually, I’d love to write and talk about film full-time, but until that’s a viable career option, I work as an auditor for Wells Fargo. I hope to one day meet my hero, go to the Toronto International Film Festival, and compete on Jeopardy. Until then, I’m excited to share my love of film with you.

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