Paramount’s “Bob Marley: One Love” is shaping up to be the first bit of good news the box office has enjoyed in nearly a month, as the music biopic is riding strong word-of-mouth from fans of the music legend to an estimated 6-day opening of $46 million.
That is considerably above pre-release projections, which topped out at $35 million between Valentine’s Day and Presidents’ Day. While critics weren’t enthused by the film and gave it a 43% Rotten Tomatoes score, Kingsley Ben-Adir’s performance as Bob Marley has won over reggae fans, who gave the film an A on CinemaScore.
With a $70 million budget, “Bob Marley” should be able to turn a modest theatrical profit based solely on turnout from Marley’s fans, who are numerous not only in the U.S. but in much of Europe and the Americas. It would be another solid result for Paramount in 2024 after turning “Mean Girls,” a film previously set for streaming release, into a January theatrical title that just reached $100 million worldwide against a $36 million budget.
The question though is whether this strong word-of-mouth for “Bob Marley: One Love” will raise interest among general audiences or if the buzz will only stay among the film’s core fanbase, similar to what happened to the musical “The Color Purple” earlier this winter. The movie has a limited amount of time to win over general audiences before the release of “Dune: Part Two” at the start of March.
There won’t be any such hope for Sony/Columbia’s “Madame Web,” which is getting rejected by critics and audiences alike en route to a $24 million 6-day opening from 4,013 theaters.
While that’s consistent with pre-release projections, it’s also well short of the film’s reported $80 million budget. There’s also little sign of the film legging out, as it holds Rotten Tomatoes scores of 13% critics and 54% audience along with a C+ on CinemaScore.
While “Bob Marley” and “Madame Web” are providing some relief to movie theaters that have weathered three weeks of declining ticket sales since MLK weekend, they’re not enough to keep this Presidents’ Day weekend from being the lowest grossing in years. Industry estimates have 4-day overall totals reaching just $88 million, roughly half of the $168.7 million grossed on this weekend last year, when “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” was released.
