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APEX Hollywood Shortlist: Star Power Propels Home and Get Hard to the Top of B.O. Pack

March 31, 2015  | Written by Tomas Romero

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Fueled by good-old-fashioned Hollywood star power, a pair of very different films took the box office by storm over the weekend. Rocketing to fist place was DreamWorks Animation’s fish-out-of-water sci-fi comedy Home with $52.1M.

Featuring the voice talents of Jim Parsons, Steve Martin, Rihanna and Jennifer Lopez – who performed the film’s title track “Feel the Light” on a recent episode of American Idol – Home has been making a name for itself via a raft of talk show appearances, promotional contests and free screenings for children’s groups nationwide for months. And despite the fact that none of the cast ever actually appears onscreen, the promotional campaign seems to be paying off handsomely for DreamWorks Animation (DWA). Projected to be well on its way to an out-of-this-world $130M domestically, Home is DWA’s biggest stateside debut since Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted, which opened with $60.3M in June of 2012.

Opening with a bang in second place was Warner Brothers’ Will Ferrell-Kevin Hart comedy Get Hard which took in a cool $33.8M. Hot off a whirlwind press tour that witnessed Ferrell and Hart making the rounds on the talk shows together and engaging in an epic lip-sync battle with Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon, Get Hard should prove to be massive R-rated hit for the studio.

Also noteworthy was the killer 1,005 percent jump in ticket sales for Radius/TWC’s teen cult horror flick It Follows, which landed in fifth place in it’s first week of wide release with $3.8M.

And on the specialized front, Oscar-nominated writer-director Noah Baumbach’s latest ensemble dramedy While We’re Young took the per-screen average race to daring new heights with a whopping $56.9K ($227.6K overall) on four screens nationwide. Starring Baumbach regular Ben Stiller, Naomi Watts and Girls’ Adam Driver, Young should prove to be another art house slam dunk for indie hit maker A24.

Complete Box Office Results – March 27-March 29, 2015