Paramount’s musical biopic Bob Marley: One Love will tower over Sony/Marvel’s Madame Web, $30M-$35M to $20M-$25M over the six-day Valentine’s Day-Presidents Day stretch.
While those figures haven’t changed much since they arrived on tracking, doesn’t that seem a bit anticlimactic for a Presidents Day stretch? I mean, Disney/Marvel Studio’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania did $120.3M in its four-day opening a year ago, and many poured cold water on that result. Get with it: Who wouldn’t want that now?
“In a trough of non-moviegoing, it’s hard to gin it up again, unless you have a franchise type movie, which Dune: Part Two is at the start of March,” observed one razor sharp rival motion picture exec about the dual strikes’ impact on the 2024 theatrical sked.
Bob Marley: One Love is definitely solid with multi-cultural, but also in first choice it’s jamming with older women, older men and younger females. Paramount has a majority of PLFs for this $70M PG-13 feature production, directed by King Richard‘s Reinaldo Marcus Green and starring Kingsley Ben-Adir in the title role. Overall theater count is 3,500 theaters. Critics on Rotten Tomatoes stand at 37% Rotten, which is lower than Paramount’s 2019 Elton John biopic Rocketman which fired up 89% Certified Fresh. Bob Marley: One Love also hits 47 markets this week including Australia, Benelux, Brazil, France, Germany, Mexico, Scandinavia, Spain and the United Kingdom. Italy will go on Feb. 22, South Korea on March 14 with Japan on May 10.
For most exhibitors, I understand, Bob Marley: One Love is outselling Madame Web, 2-to-1 in advance ticket sales.
Madame Web has all the Imax screens, and is big with younger females and younger males. Sony has pivoted in its spots of late to stress the thriller aspect of the feature instead of any connection to the Spider-Man universe. There is concern out there that fanboys are anti-female superhero movies post The Marvels registering the lowest opening for Disney/Marvel Studios at $46.1M stateside, $84.5M domestic final and $206M global. No reviews yet for Madame Web. The world premiere is tonight in Westwood. Whatever, Madame Web lacks, it makes up for in talent with Dakota Johnson, who has been queen of the box office over Valentine’s Day/Presidents Day before with Fifty Shades of Grey, and Sydney ‘bringing back the rom com’ Sweeney, hot off Sony’s cash cow Anyone But You which is poised to ultimately slam-dunk $200M worldwide. Madame Web cost $80M before P&A. The Spider-women feature was co-written by Claire Parker, Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless; the latter duo having penned Sony/Marvel’s Morbius ($39M domestic opening, $73.8M domestic final, $167.4M WW).
Both Bob Marley: One Love and Madame Web will be opening up cold, sans Tuesday night previews, on Valentine’s Day which is a lucrative day for moviegoing.
We’ll update you when we get more on overseas.