With the NFL season behind us, exhibitors were expecting traffic to return to their theatres for the long holiday weekend. Last week, the attention of most Americans was focused on the Super Bowl, which drew a record-breaking TV audience of 123.4M viewers. By contrast, North American theatres were only able to sell $38.9M in movie tickets, the lowest box office total of the year. Help arrived on Wednesday from the dual wide releases of BOB MARLEY: ONE LOVE and MADAME WEB.
Even though the box office was significantly higher than last weekend’s, it did not rise to last year’s total on the same weekend when ANT-MAN AND THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA opened with $106.1M all by itself. Last year’s total for all films was a robust $146.0M, whereas this year produced $76.5M or a mere 52% year-over-year. The next boost to the box office will come on March 1st when DUNE: PART TWO arrives.
Paramount’s BOB MARLEY: ONE LOVE earned a first-place finish with its three-day opening weekend of $27.7M. Since it arrived on Wednesday for Valentine’s Day, it has built up a five-day gross of $45.6M. This biographical drama chronicles the life and music of Bob Marley, the famous reggae singer and songwriter. The film follows his rise to fame during the 1970s until his untimely death in 1981.
It was directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green, who also directed KING RICHARD, the 2021 bio-pic about Richard Williams, the father of tennis stars Serena and Venus Williams. That movie received an Oscar nomination for Best Picture, and Green is widely credited for having helped Will Smith win his only Oscar for Best Actor. KING RICHARD received tremendous critical acclaim with a 90% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an even better 98% audience score.
As for BOB MARLEY: ONE LOVE, the critics have turned sour by giving it a 43% rating, even though audiences are enthusiastic with a 94% score. Even though KING RICHARD was a darling with The Academy, it could only muster a total domestic gross of $15.1M. BOB MARLEY already has earned $45.6M in the five days it has played, triple the amount earned by KING RICHARD.
Green’s earlier film never approached profitability, having spent $50M on the product. BOB MARLEY: ONE LOVE carries a somewhat higher production budget of $70M, but its opening box office gives it a decent chance of reaching profitability, as long as it can maintain ticket sales over the next few weeks without precipitous drops.
Sony’s MADAME WEB also opened Wednesday but only earned a second-place finish with a three-day gross of $15.2M and a five-day total of $23.4M. MADAME WEB tells the stand-alone story of one of Marvel’s most mysterious heroines, Cassandra “Cassie” Webb a.k.a. Madame Web. She is a paramedic in New York who develops the power to see the future and tries to use her knowledge to change the course of events.
The film stars Dakota Johnson with support from Sydney Sweeney, Emma Roberts, Mike Epps, and Adam Scott. While its creators had hoped it would be the launching point for a new cinematic sub-franchise, that now seems unlikely. On Rotten Tomatoes, MADAME WEB came in with a shockingly low 13% critics score and 54% from audiences.
The industry continues to be stuck in a rut of disappointing superhero movies, including AQUAMAN AND THE LOST KINGDOM (12/25/23 opening of $27.7M), THE MARVELS (11/10/23 opening of $46.1M), and BLUE BEETLE (8/18/23 opening of $25M). After Sony spent $80M on its production, MADAME WEB will struggle to break even and will most likely wind up as a one-off effort, without any future spin-offs or sequels.
Apple and Universal’s ARGYLLE took in $4.7M in its third weekend to come in third place, a drop of only 25% from last weekend. This brings its total after 17 days to $36.5M domestic and $73M worldwide. By stabilizing its week-to-week decline in ticket sales, the outlook for the film now seems to be somewhat brighter than we had predicted. It still has an outside chance of producing a very important $100M worldwide gross, that will go a long way towards defraying the $200M Apple spent on its production.
After nine weeks in theatres, Universal and Illumination’s MIGRATION kept flying along with a box office of $3.8M, a decline of 28% from last weekend. The animated family film has brought in $114.8M domestically and a very healthy $244.8 worldwide. The family audience will finally have another option beginning on March 8th when Universal releases the Dreamworks animated sequel KUNG FU PANDA 4.
Fathom Events’ THE CHOSEN: SEASON 4 EPISODES 4-6 opened in fifth place this weekend with a gross of $3.4M. This is the next package of episodes in the planned rollout of THE CHOSEN Season 4, which opens in theatres first before its television appearance. Fathom concluded a two-week run of THE CHOSEN: SEASON 4 EPISODES 1-3 that earned a solid $13.9M over 14 days.
EPISODES 4-6 have started more slowly, with a four-day total of $4.2M since its Thursday opening. This compares to the first four days of EPISODES 1-3 earnings of $7.3M. This should have been expected, because even though the audience for THE CHOSEN series is loyal, it is not very deep. The highest-grossing CHOSEN title in theatres thus far has been THE CHOSEN: SEASON 3 EPISODES 1-2, which took in $14.6M over four weeks when it appeared in late 2022.
A back-to-back, continuous release of sets of episodes is testing the capacity of that audience to turn out again and again over a short time frame. Stay alert, because the third and final package of episodes is coming in just over one week, when THE CHOSEN: SEASON 4 EPISODES 7-8 arrives on February 29th.
Throughout the year we have chronicled the surprising success of Sony’s rom-com ANYONE BUT YOU. We can now report that its box office has surpassed that of TICKET TO PARADISE to become the top-grossing rom-com in the post-pandemic era. With $173.0M in total worldwide sales, aided in part by a late Valentine’s Day push, it has surpassed the $168.7M total that TICKET TO PARADISE earned in its 2022 run.
Where Are We as of 2/15
After the first six weeks of 2024, the year-to-date box office stands at 89% compared with the same six weeks in 2023, and 63% compared with those weeks in 2019.
