Strong audience buzz is boosting Paramount’s “Bob Marley: One Love” in what has otherwise been a rough Presidents’ Day weekend for the box office compared to years past.
The music biopic, which stars Kingsley Ben-Adir as the famed reggae legend, is opening quite well with an estimated $51 million 6-day domestic opening. While critics were tepid on the film with a 43% Rotten Tomatoes score, Bob Marley’s fans are singing its praises with an A on CinemaScore and a 93% RT audience score.
Overseas, “Bob Marley” is getting some help with $29 million from international markets — including $9.3 million in the U.K. — giving it an $80 million global launch. While the film will soon get considerable competition from “Dune: Part Two,” it should be able to perform modestly well against its reported $70 million budget.
The next step for “Bob Marley” will be to try to expand its reach beyond its core audience and out to general moviegoers who aren’t as familiar with Marley’s music. The film might be making some progress towards that goal as industry estimates for the extended opening have only increased over the last few days, rising well above pre-release projections that topped out at $35 million across six days. However, we won’t know until next weekend how much of a foothold the film has made.
On the flipside, there’s Sony/Columbia’s “Madame Web,” which is crashing out this weekend with a $25.8 million 6-day launch. While on the top end of the $22-25 million range projected before release, it is well short of the reported $80 million production budget spent before marketing costs.
Unlike “Bob Marley,” “Madame Web” doesn’t have any signs that it will leg out in the weeks ahead. Critics and audiences alike are unimpressed, with Rotten Tomatoes scores of 13% critics and 54% audience, while CinemaScore polls returned a C+. With “Dune: Part Two” on the horizon, expect this film to plummet down the charts quickly.
Beyond the new releases, the Presidents’ Day weekend box office has nothing else but weeks-old wide releases and some specialty offerings to support it. It was a similar case last year, but at least the $120 million 4-day launch of “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” was enough to support the market before it had some of the worst legs ever for a superhero film.
The result is an industry estimated overall 4-day weekend total of around $90 million, a figure that is 46% down from the $168.7 million accumulated on Presidents’ Day weekend 2023.
Universal/Apple’s “Argylle” is in a distant third place this weekend with an estimated 4-day weekend total of $5.5 million, giving the spy film that Apple spent $200 million to acquire an abysmal $37.2 million domestic and $76 million global total.
Universal/Illumination’s “Migration” is in fourth with $5 million over the extended weekend, giving the film a $116 million domestic and $254 million global total. While poor overseas returns have left the original animated film earning far less than past Universal winter animated releases, the lack of competition has allowed the film to leg out in the U.S. and at least pass the global total of Disney’s Thanksgiving release “Wish” while sporting half the production budget at just $90 million.
In the No. 5 slot, Warner Bros.’ “Wonka” crossed one final milestone in its tenth weekend in theaters, passing $600 million in global grosses as the film added $4.4 million over the extended weekend.
On the specialty side, Fathom Events released episodes 4-6 of Angel Studios’ “The Chosen: Season 4” in 2,221 theaters, grossing $4.2 million. That’s below the $7.3 million that the first three episodes of the season grossed in their opening weekend, though that’s consistent with the traditional decline in viewership that a TV series can have over the course of a season. So far, the fourth season of “The Chosen” has grossed over $18 million in theaters.
Finally, ShortsTV continued its annual tradition of releasing the 15 Oscar-nominated short films on the big screen, grossing an estimated $915,000 over four days from 375 theaters for a $2,440 per theater average. Among the nominated films on offer this year are Wes Anderson’s “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar” and the John Lennon and Yoko Ono-inspired animated short “War Is Over!”
