Can Bob Marley: One Love Pull An Elvis At The Box Office?
February 2024 is, in all likelihood, going to be one of the worst months at the box office in quite some time. January was rough with very few new releases to help keep theaters afloat, and now the 2023 holdovers like "Wonka" and "Anyone But You" are running out of steam. With "Argylle" also failing to do big numbers, things have gone from bad to worse. Valentine's Day will see potential help arrive in the form of "Bob Marley: One Love," with the musical biopic seeking to capitalize on not one, but two different holidays as it will also benefit from President's Day that following Monday. So, can this Bob Marley biopic pull an "Elvis" and become a breakthrough hit?
Paramount Pictures is releasing the film mid-week on Wednesday timed to Valentine's Day. It will be opening directly against Sony's latest Marvel Comics adaptation "Madame Web." On paper, at least, those films appear to be going for slightly different audiences and should be able to co-exist just fine. Early tracking had director Reinaldo Marcus Green's "One Love" taking in anywhere between $27 and $33 million during its first six days of release. That would give it the number one spot, as "Madame Web" is tracking for around $25 million during that same stretch.
Those numbers were early, however. The folks at Box Office Pro now have "One Love" doing between $15 and $20 million over the three-day weekend, with "Madame Web" taking in between $20 and $29 million. It's probably going to be a tight race, but in the end, it doesn't matter all that much which movie comes out on top, save for bragging rights and getting to put "number one movie" in the post-release advertising. As is always the case, it's all relative and what really matters financially is whether or not it sells enough tickets to justify what Paramount spent to make the movie in the first place.
Is Bob Marley more like Whitney Houston or Elvis Presley?
Kingsley Ben-Adir ("Secret Invasion," "One Night in Miami") stars as the "No Woman No Cry" singer, with Lashana Lynch ("No Time to Die") and James Norton ("Happy Valley") co-starring. The film was made in conjunction with the Marley family and chronicles the life of the late singer, who has sold more than 75 million albums. Despite passing away at the age of 36 in the early '80s, his music has remained quite popular. Paramount is banking on that popularity translating to ticket sales at the box office.
Luckily, recent history is largely on the studio's side here. Baz Luhrmann's "Elvis" would be the high watermark, with the 2022 biopic centered on Elvis Presley taking in $288 million worldwide and garnering several Oscar nominations. That movie opened to $31 million in June of that year. On the other end of the spectrum, we have "Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody," which topped out with just shy of $60 million worldwide after opening to a little less than $5 million in December 2022. Based on the early numbers, it seems like "One Love" is going to fall somewhere in between those two.
A better comparison might be 2019's Elton John biopic "Rocketman," which also hailed from Paramount. Against a $40 million budget, it opened to $25.7 million en route to $196 million worldwide. One imagines the studio tried to keep the budget in a similar range for this one. If that is indeed the case, the numbers could be in its favor. If critical opinion is positive, this one has the opportunity to leg out as there is very little meaningful competition until "Dune: Part Two" arrives on March 1.
"Bob Marley: One Love" is set to hit theaters on February 14, 2024.