NORTH AMERICA: ‘Home’ Surges Past Expectations with $68.2M in Its First Week After $4.50M on Thursday; ‘Get Hard’ Gets To $44.1M After $2.33M Thursday Take

Please note that because of the holiday weekend, some of today’s figures are studio estimates.

Home grossed an estimated $4.50 million on Thursday to lead the daily box office for a seventh straight and final day. The 3D computer animated film from Fox and DreamWorks Animation featuring the voices of Jim Parsons and Rihanna was up a strong 32 percent over Wednesday. Holy Thursday is typically a strong day for family films and that was certainly the case for Home yesterday. Home was the week’s top film with a seven-day start of $68.22 million. That was well ahead of expectations and was an impressive 10 percent stronger than the $62.18 million seven-day start of 2013’s The Croods (though it should be noted that Home is displaying more initial front-loading than The Croods did).

Warner’s Get Hard rounded out its first week of release with an estimated second place take of $2.33 million. The R-rated comedy starring Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart was up a slim 1 percent over Wednesday. Get Hard was clearly affected on Thursday by the strong evening launch of Universal’s Furious 7 (which will be counted towards Friday’s opening day performance). Get Hard placed in second for the week with $44.08 million. The film performed towards the higher end of pre-release expectations and is currently running 16 percent behind the $52.54 million seven-day take of 2010’s The Other Guys.

Cinderella was up one spot and 23 percent over Wednesday to move into third with $2.04 million. Disney’s blockbuster fairy tale adaptation was down just 9 percent from last Thursday. Cinderella placed in fourth for the week with $24.45 million. That represented a 46 percent decline from the previous week and brings the film’s three-week total to a strong $156.96 million. Cinderella will hope to stabilize going forward throughout the month of April.

Lionsgate’s The Divergent Series: Insurgent was down one spot form Wednesday to fall to fourth with $2.00 million. The second installment of the young adult series starring Shailene Woodley was up 19 percent over Wednesday and down 22 percent from last Thursday. Insurgent placed in third for the week with $29.07 million. That was down 55 percent from the film’s opening week performance and places the film’s two-week total at $93.38 million.

It Follows rounded out Thursday’s top five with $0.397 million. The critically acclaimed horror thriller from RADiUS-TWC was up a solid 10 percent over Wednesday. It Follows placed in fifth for the week with $5.34 million. The film has grossed $6.08 million to date and will be playing in 1,655 locations this weekend.