As the NCAA basketball tournament pares down from the Sweet 16 to the Final Four this weekend, two films target at different demographics, Get Hard [GHARD] and Home [SMEKD] will fight for number one at the box office. Warner Bros. is likely to prevail with the R-rated comedy teaming of Will Ferrell [WFERR] and Kevin Hart [KHART]. While Ferrell has not been seen since Anchorman 2 in December 2013, Hart has starred in 6 films during the same span with The Wedding Ringer opening just 2 months ago at $20.6 million. Will overexposure finally catch up to Hart like it did to Neeson? Get Hard has earned mostly negative reviews for its politically incorrect, racial and homophobic jokes. However, never underestimate the taste of America or lack there of as the film is tracking well with moviegoers. Sentenced to 3175 theaters, Get Hard could lock away $31 million.
DreamWorks Animation has been on quite a losing streak for the last two years as film after film underperformed at the box office. The Trend is likely to continue with Home featuring the voice of Rihanna [RIHAN] as a young girl and Jim Parsons [JPARS] as an alien. The PG-rated film will appeal only to young children as there is nothing special in the animation or story to attract teens and adults. There has been no advance tickets report that Home is outselling Mr. Peabody & Sherman, which debuted with $32.2 million last March. Heading into 3708 theaters, Home could pack in $28 million.
Insurgent [DVRG2] ultimately fell short of Divergent’s opening. More male moviegoers attended the action-packed sequel than the first film, which means some women didn’t come back. Divergent dropped 53% in its sophomore weekend. A similar decline for Insurgent would bring in $25 million.
With competition from Home for the family audience, Cinderella [CINDE] will have to contend with around $19 million for its third outing.
It Follows [ITFLW] was supposed to debut on VOD this weekend, Radius-TWC decided to expand the R-rated horror film wide instead after two weeks of stellar performance in limited release. It Follows built up buzz during the festival circuit and the strong word-of-mouth has continued to grow. It Follows could tally $6 million from 1218 locations.
That’s the whisper from the virtual trading floor.
Tag(s): GHARD, SMEKD, WFERR, KHART, RIHAN, JPARS, DVRG2, CINDE, ITFLW