CALIFORNIA, United States, Tuesday March 31, 2015 – Barbados’ pop princess Rihanna continues her reign with her starring role in DreamWorks new animated film Home, which has soared to the top of the box office, raking in an estimated US$54 million at US and Canadian theatres over its opening weekend.
Rentrak’s estimate of ticket sales for Friday through Sunday lends blockbuster status to the tale of the friendship between an earthling girl named Tip, voiced and sung by Rihanna, and an outcast space alien named Oh, played by Jim Parsons.
Puerto Rican-born Jennifer Lopez also stars as Tip’s mother in the family-friendly adventure film, which beat Kevin Hart and Will Ferrell’s R-rated comedy Get Hard into second place.
Rihanna is no stranger to the motion picture industry, having made her debut on the big screen with a role in Peter Berg’s 2012 action adventure movie Battleship.
She is currently the subject of a feature-length documentary by filmmaker Berg, which will give fans an “unfiltered look into Rihanna’s life and how she’s ascended to become a global icon,” according to Deadline.
While there’s no word yet on when the documentary will be released, “odds are it’ll be after her upcoming album – which hopefully is on the way very soon,” according to MTV News.
Meanwhile, this weekend’s second-placed film Get Hard opened with an estimated US$34.6 million for Warner Bros, the largest premiere for the movie’s laugh out loud duo of Hart and Ferrell.
Variety reports that Get Hard ousted last weekend’s top film Insurgent, which fell 58 percent to make US$22 million and land in third place on the charts.
The young-adult sequel to Divergent has earned a total of US$86.4 million after two weeks atop the box office.
Disney’s Cinderella, starring Lily James and Cate Blanchett, hauled in US$17.5 million to take fourth place and bring its impressive earning total so far to US$150 million.
Meanwhile, the mouse house continues to celebrate Big Hero 6 becoming the top-grossing worldwide animated release of 2014. The Oscar-winning film has earned US$633 million globally.
Disney, with its lucrative ownership of Marvel, Lucasfilm and Pixar, is expected to continue on a roll throughout 2015 with releases like Star Wars: The Force Awakens, The Avengers: Age of Ultron, and Inside Out.
Next week Universal Pictures will debut Furious 7, starring the late Paul Walker, along with Vin Diesel, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Jason Statham, Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson, and Ludacris.
The seventh outing in the Fast & The Furious series is predicted to bag a record $100 million-plus opening.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at US and Canadian theatres, according to Rentrak:
1. Home, $54 million
2. Get Hard, $34.6 million
3. The Divergent Series: Insurgent, $22.1 million
4. Cinderella, $17.5 million
5. It Follows, $4 million
6. Kingsman: The Secret Service, $3.1 million
7. Run All Night, $2.2 million
8. The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, $2.2 million
9. Do You Believe?, $2.2 million
10. The Gunman, $2 million