It’s been a rough month at the box office for most films. Outside of a few clear winners, such as Disney’s Cinderella and last week’s number one film Insurgent, many struggled to make more than $5 million on any given weekend. This week saw a change in that with four films taking in more than $15 million.
Top 5 Domestic Grossing Films: March 27-29 ($152.2 million total)
- Home ($54 million)
- Get Hard ($34.6 million)
- Insurgent ($22.1 million)
- Cinderella ($17.5 million)
- It Follows ($4 million)
Leading the way was the newest animated comedy from DreamWorks and 20th Century Fox, Home. Being the only big name animated film currently in theaters, it’s no surprise that parents and kids found their way to it, resulting in a huge $54 million weekend. It still has quite a ways to go to reach its lofty $135 million budget, but even amid mixed reviews from critics, it shouldn’t have much trouble reaching that target with no Disney or Pixar films in sight until Inside Out on June 19.
Following that is the latest from Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart, Get Hard. Universally panned by critics for its generally homophobic, racist, and most of all lazy jokes, the film rode its star power to a $34.6 million weekend at the box office. The film has been hammered ever since it first debuted during SXSW earlier in the month for its juvenile comedy and dated jokes.
Last week’s big winner, Insurgent, had another strong weekend taking in $22.1 million to bring its two-week total up to $86.4 million. Currently Insurgent is on track to make a bit less than its predecessor, Divergent, which finished out its second weekend with $94.4 million. All told, Divergent went on to make $150.9 million domestically. Like Divergent, Insurgent is being met with mixed reviews, but that isn’t stopping wide-eyed teens from flocking en masse to see the Shailene Woodley in the young adult novel adaptation.
Disney’s live-action Cinderella adaptation continues to do well at the box office, as it slowly begins to trickle out of theaters. In 33 less theater locations than last weekend it still brought in $17.5 million as the fourth and final film of the week to reach eight figures.
Despite being hailed as a smart and original horror movie, It Follows had a less-than-stellar nationwide release. Showing in 1,218 theaters, the David Robert Mitchell film took in $4 million for a $3,301 per-theater average. Not a terrible opening by any means, but maybe not as much as one would hope considering other far worse horror movies such as Ouija open to nearly $20 million.
It’s looking less likely that Liam Neeson’s big flop Run All Night will end up making back its $50 million production budget domestically as it took in only $2.2 million this weekend – bringing its current total gross to $23.8 million.
Noah Baumbach’s comedy drama While We’re Young was propelled by performances from Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts to a $242,000 weekend during its limited four-theater release. This $60,500 per-theater average was by the far the big winner of the weekend, with the next closest being Home at $14,563 gross income per-theater.
This year’s final weekend of March is the highest grossing such weekend dating all the way back to 1982. No other final weekend of March has passed its $152.2 million, and the closest was 2012 when The Hunger Games led the way to a $148.9 million weekend.
Last year at the box office at this time Russel Crow starred in the big winner, Noah, which took in $43.7 million. Following that was the first Divergent movie in its second weekend taking in $25.6 million.
[button type=”link” link=”http://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/?yr=2015&wknd=13&p=.htm” variation=”btn-danger” target=”blank”]Source: Box Office Mojo[/button]
Last Updated on November 27, 2018.
