Somewhere in a lavish Hollywood estate, movie mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg must be celebrating, and breathing a huge sigh of relief.
DreamWorks Animation’s “Home” was a huge hit with family audiences this weekend, easily taking first place with a better than expected $54 million. This is a much-needed bit of good news for Dreamworks Animation and Jeffrey Katzenberg.
But don’t feel too bad for Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart. Playing at 3,175 locations, “Get Hard” finished in second place, opening with a very respectable $34.6 million this weekend. That’s pretty good for an R rated comedy, and it ranks third all-time among live-action Will Ferrell movies, and ranks second among Kevin Hart’s recent slew of leading roles.
And it;s not like Kevin Hart wasn’t trying his darndest to get people into the theatre. This is Hart, at my local movie theatre on Saturday afternoon, where he bought tickets for at least 200 people:
He posted the news on Twitter and then it was every man for himself. You should have seen it: It was like the running ob the bulls in Pamplona Spain.
Anyways. the movie’s audience was 54 percent male and 61 percent were 25 years of age or older. Word-of-mouth is mixed (“B” CinemaScore), and reviews are still terrible.
Your top five spring training results:
1. Home — $54 million
2. Get Hard — $34.6 million
3. Insurgent — $22.1 million
4. Cinderella — $17.5 million
5. It Follows — $4 million