Warner Bros‘ R-rated Will Ferrell–Kevin Hart comedy Get Hard had a great Thursday, grossing $1.8M. That figure beats the $1.1M generated by Hart’s Ride Along during its Thursday preview in January 2014. That film went on to make $41.5M over three days during its MLK weekend bow. In addition, Get Hard outstrips the $800K Thursday night posted by Hart’s The Wedding Ringer, which ultimately made $20.6M during this year’s MLK holiday weekend.
DreamWorks Animation‘s Home released by 20th Century Fox also was in good shape, grossing $650K from Thursday shows starting at 7 PM. The film will benefit from having 15% of K-12 schools being out today, per Rentrak Theatrical. Home beat the Thursday preview haul of last April’s Rio 2. which made $375K when 9% K-12 schools were out, and March 2013’s The Croods, which generated $200K when 13% of schools were out.
Both Home and Get Hard are looking at respective opening weekends in the low- to mid-$30Ms. Although industry tracking earlier in the week indicated that Get Hard had the edge over Home, the latter has the extra benefit of weekend matinees.
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