The Weekend Report: It Follows Chases After Home and Get Hard

In which I run down the big winners (and losers) at the box office this weekend.

Unsurprisingly, the big animated family movie and the Will Farrell / Kevin Hart comedy topped the box office this weekend.  Cinderella's still hanging in there like a champ, thanks to a much broader appeal than any of the weekend's new or expanded releases can boast of.  The real surprise of the weekend, for me at least, was It Follows.

While there've been plenty of kids movies to come and go from theaters in the last couple of months, there have been surprisingly few animated ones.  Cinderella is a live-action fairy tale that doesn't even appeal to the very young, Paddington was a live-action comedy with a CG bear, Sponge Out of Water maligned every parent, aunt, uncle and grandparent that had to sit through it and Strange Magic hardly even counts at this point.

Until now, 2015 had lacked the broadly drawn, big budget, family-friendly animated movies that generally make up a large percentage of the year's top grossers.  It's lacked a Big Hero 6 or a How to Train Your Dragon 2.  And while Home still doesn't fit quite that role, its come closer than anything released so far this year, and has reaped the benefit of that fact.  While I haven't seen it yet, expect a review of it sometime either later this week or early next week, as Becky has this little purple alien on her mind.

A friend of mine once accused me of hating all comedies.  While it's true that it's not my favorite genre, I hardly hate all of them.  I'm just extremely picky and know exactly what I like.  Despite its undeniable mainstream appeal, Get Hard is not the comedy for me.

Nor is it the comedy for lots of people, it would seem.  It's another movie that benefits from an advantageously timed release date, some big names and the lack of a real competitor at the box office.  The last R-rated comedy that didn't bomb was The Wedding Ringer, and that was released in January.  Will Farrell is popular beyond reason and Kevin Hart has a strong following as well; their appeal and the fact that their only real competition didn't cross over into their demographic resulted in an impressively strong weekend finish.

Although It Follows was technically released to theaters weeks ago, it's finally expanded into a somewhat wide release, meaning that this is pretty much the first time that anybody's heard of this movie, let alone had the opportunity to see it.  It snuck its way to fifth place at the box office this weekend thanks to strong word of mouth and a 95% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.  And like Get Hard, it enjoys little competition from other horror movies, and none from R-rated ones.

My feelings on this movie are pretty strongly mixed.  On the one hand, it was an extremely interesting premise and was more of a metaphorical danger than a tangible one - a lot like last year's The Babadook - but on the other hand, it never quite coalesced into a horror movie the way that it should, and certainly could, have.  While I can't see myself recommending this to too many people, I would have to imagine that those who loved The Babadook will find a considerable overlap with It Follows.

Box Office Standings:

1)  Home - $54m

2)  Get Hard - $34.6m

3)  Insurgent - $22m

4)  Cinderella - $17.5m

5)  It Follows - $4m
6)  Kingsman: The Secret Service - $4.6m
7)  Run All Night - $5.1m
8)  The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel - $3.5m
9)  Do You Believe? - $4m
10)  The Gunman - $5m

So what movie did you see this last weekend?  Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

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