A strong Valentine's Day opening pushes Bob Marley: One Love to a surprisingly muscular opening, while Madame Web gets itself tangled up.
Music biopics are decidedly hit and miss. For every Elvis or Bohemian Rhapsody, there are several Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody or Get On Up. That's why exceptions for the latest, Bob Marley: One Love, were rather muted. The drama, tracing the career of the legendary reggae musician, played by Kingsley Ben-Adir, through his 1981 death from cancer, ended up opening on Valentine's Day to mostly negative reviews. But, possibly because there wasn't exactly much else out there for couples wanting to catch a movie that night, the film exploded out of the gate, taking in $14 million that Wednesday alone. While the film predictably dropped after the holiday, it was not another Color Purple situation, as the film had a strong weekend, taking in $28.7 million over the Friday-Sunday portion of the President's Day weekend, for a gross of $46.5 million since opening. That makes One Love a strong contender to be 2024's first $100 million grosser.
Speaking of $100 million, it wasn't so long ago that a film from Marvel or DC not opening above $100 million was considered a disaster. But demand for the comic book movies seems way way down, as Shazam! Fury of the Gods, Blue Beetle, and The Marvels all failed to hit the century mark by the end of their runs. We can almost certainly add Madame Web to that list, as the Spider-Man spin-off, starring Dakota Johnson as a clairvoyant paramedic who protects three young women (including Anyone But You's Sydney Sweeney) from a madman, could only scrape up $15.3 million over the weekend and $23.6 million through Sunday. Forget $100 million, Web could have trouble making it to $50 million.
Spy comedy Argylle, which has won the last two weeks mainly by default, fell predictably to third in its third weekend, earning $4.9 million to bring its total to $36.6 million. It looks like it will top out somewhere between $40 and $50 million, or less than a quarter of its production budget. The film isn't doing much better overseas, so don't hold your breath of Argylle Returns.
After spending its entire run looking up at fellow family film Wonka, animated comedy Migration finally flies above the chocolate maker in its 9th(!) weekend, taking in $3.8 million, an increase from last weekend, probably because parents realized they needed to do something with their kids over the three-day weekend. Migration is now up to $114.9 million.
After the first three episodes of the season made $13.9 million over its two-week theatrical run, The Chosen debuted Episodes 4-6 of the fourth season on Thursday and made $3.6 million on the weekend and $4.4 million total. Like the first three, these episodes will have a two-week run before being replaced by the season's last two episodes on February 29.
Wonka finally falls out of the Top 5, taking in $3.5 million for a total of $209.9 million. The fact that Migration and Wonka took in a combined $7.3 million two months into their runs strongly suggests Hollywood is leaving a great amount of money on the table by not releasing any family movies during the first two months of the year, outside of warmed-over Pixar titles and obscure French cartoons. That also suggests that next month's Kung Fu Panda 4 could do very well right out of the gate.
The Beekeeper continues to do solid business, earning $3.2 million for a total of $60 million, becoming the first Jason Statham solo vehicle to hit that mark. Anyone But You benefited by being the only straight ahead romcom out right now to earn another $2.4 million for a total of $84.7 million.
Not benefiting from Valentine's Day is the decidedly not-normal Lisa Frankenstein as the horror comedy collapsed further from its dismal opening, taking in $2.1 million for a ten-day total of $7.7 million. While a 43% drop for the second weekend of a horror film is generally considered a good hold, it is by far the worst of this week's Top 10, and it seems likely that Lisa will return to the grave at under $10 million total.
Opening at #10 was the lightly promoted Land of Bad, a war drama starring Liam Hemsworth, Milo Ventimiglia, and Russell Crowe whose theatrical release seems to largely be to give the film more name recognition for when it hits streaming. Still, the star power helped the film earn a not-awful-given-the-circumstances $1.8 million.
Outside the Top Ten, Out of Darkness and Turning Red could only muster up less than $0.4 million each in their respective second weekends, giving the two titles a ten-day total of $1.8 million and $1.2 million, respectively.
This weekend is going to be a crowded one, as three new titles--none of which would be considered major releases--hit theaters in an effort to knock Bob Marley: One Love out of first. Ordinary Angels is a Christian drama about a hairdresser who helps a single father secure a liver transplant for his daughter. This one is following in the footsteps of Heaven is For Real, Miracles From Heaven, and I Can Only Imagine by putting a well-known, if not A-list, actor/actress--in this case, Hilary Swank-- in a true story and (hopefully) watch the money role in. Also opening is road trip comedy Drive-Away Dolls, the first solo effort of Ethan Coen, about two women (Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan) driving from New York to Florida, unaware that something that mobsters want back is stashed in their car's truck. Being a Coen Brother movie, there's some solid names in the supporting cast (including Matt Damon), but it remains to be seen what Ethan can do without Joel around. Finally, in what may be the biggest opening despite arriving on the fewest number of screens, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba-To the Hashira Training, also arrives. 2021's Demon Slayer: Mugen Train remains the highest-grossing non-Pokemon anime title ever in North America, and last year's Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba-To the Swordsmith Village did decent money. However, unlike Mugen Train, which was an actual feature film, Swordsmith Village was a compilation of episodes, as is Hashira Training. That said, Training might be able to challenge for the top spot, before doing a quick fade in coming weekends. Will Ordinary Angles bless the box office? Could Drive-Away Dolls drive away with the top spot? Will Demon Slayer kill the competition? Or will Bob Marley continue to love at the top? We'll find out next week.
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