Bob Marley Crushes Madame Web And Breaks A Valentine's Day Box Office Record
Valentine's Day gave the box office the shot in the arm it sorely needed as both Paramount's "Bob Marley: One Love" and Sony's "Madame Web" opened in theaters. They will both have a nice, long initial stretch as they not only got the mid-week holiday opening, but they will benefit from this Monday's President's Day holiday as well. As far as the head-to-head battle goes? It's not going to be remotely close, as the Bob Marley biopic is crushing Sony's latest Marvel Comics adaptation in the early going.
"One Love" pulled in $14 million on Wednesday, which marks a new record for a mid-week Valentine's Day opening. While that's nowhere near the record "Deadpool" ($42.5 million) set on the holiday back in 2016, which fell on a Sunday that year, it's now a high watermark for a non-weekend V Day debut. The previous record holder was 2012's "The Vow" ($11.6 million). Given that "Bob Marley: One Love" was tracking for between $27 and $33 million through Monday, this is an exceedingly good start. It should have no trouble beating those projections, even if it's front-loaded.
As for "Madame Web," the story is less rosy. The "Spider-Man" spin-off earned an estimated $6 million on its opening day, which was on the low side even against more modest projections. The film was expected to bring in around $25 million during its first six days of release. That was a relatively small sum for a superhero blockbuster in the first place, below even 2022's "Morbius" ($39 million opening/$167 million worldwide). At this point, it's just a matter of seeing how bad the final numbers end up being. The hope on Sony's part is that the numbers are not front-loaded for this one and that many audience members are waiting for the weekend.
Music biopics for the win, superheroes continue to suffer
Directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green, "Bob Marley: One Love" stars Kingsley Ben-Adir ("Secret Invasion," "Barbie") as the legendary musician. The film was met with mediocre reviews from critics, sitting at just 43% on Rotten Tomatoes. However, the audience score is a stellar 95%, with the biopic also earning an A CinemaScore. In short, audiences dig it even if quite a few critics were soft on it. In the end, that matters far more when it comes to word of mouth. Yes, the $70 million budget stands out, but this one may well have long legs since competition in February is scarce. A final total somewhere in the neighborhood of the Elton John biopic "Rocketman" ($25 million opening/$196 million worldwide) feels in the cards.
Meanwhile, director S.J. Clarkson's Marvel film isn't winning over too many viewers. The film, which boasts a cast led by Dakota Johnson ("Fifty Shades of Grey," "The Lost Daughter"), has been trashed by critics in the early going, sitting at just 15% on Rotten Tomatoes with a very mediocre C+ CinemaScore. Word of mouth figures to be bad for this one, and because it had such a long opening frame, the second weekend drop could be brutal. The only saving grace here is that Sony kept the budget on the low side for a superhero film at $80 million. So, at the very least, even if it doesn't make money, the losses will be mitigated.
Even so, it's yet another sign of audience tastes changing. Last year was hard on superhero movies, with only "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" and "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" ranking as outright successes. Everything else struggled, with movies like "The Marvels" and "Shazam! Fury of the Gods" flopping particularly hard. The days of a bad comic book movie still being able to make bank seem to be behind us. But the fact that audiences will show up for a crowd-pleasing biopic is welcome news — at least to the financial health of the industry.
"Bob Marley: One Love" and "Madame Web" are both in theaters now.