411 Box Office Report: Bob Marley: One Love & Madame Web Lead The Weekend

The box office received some much-needed new blood this weekend as Bob Marley: One Love and Madame Web topped the charts. The biopic of the reggae legend led the way for the President’s Day weekend with $27.7 million through Sunday and $33.2 million over four days, giving it $51.1 million since it opened on Wednesday. That’s well above projections that had it coming in at around the $30 million mark through Monday.

The three-day weekend take of One Love was the second-highest of 2024, just slightly behind Mean Girls’ $28.6 million start back on the weekend of January 12th. It’s been slim pickings at theaters since. The drama also marked the best opening for a biopic since Oppenheimer’s $82.4 million start in July of last year.

The opening of One Love can be attributed not only to the weak overall state of the box office, but also to a fair amount of buzz for the film. Not critical buzz, mind; critics were lukewarm on the movie with a 43% aggregated score on Rotten Tomatoes. But audiences are very into the film, giving it an A CinemaScore and a 93% audience rating on RT. That helped the film steadily climb in its projections as strong word of mouth spread through the past week.

Now, it must be said that this film very much needed a strong start, as it cost $70 million to produce. But it’s currently looking strong in its chances for success with a $29 million start overseas for a worldwide total of $80.1 million through Monday. The movie should be able to hit $100 million domestically and will be carried to profit with the overseas numbers.

On the flip side, Madame Web had a much less successful start. The Sony Spider-Man Universe entry brought in $15.2 million through Sunday and $17.6 million through Monday. It performed about at where expectations were for it, totaling $25.8 million since opening on Wednesday, but that’s not encouraging for a heavily promoted film with a superhero motif.

The issues here can be marked up to a combination of bad buzz and audience apathy. Madame Web is centered on a more obscure character in Marvel continuity and while it features (and partially marketed around) three more well-known Spider-Man characters, it’s not their story. But the bigger problem was the marketing and the negative word around it. The first trailer was turned into a meme – and not in a good way – for some of the clunky dialogue. And the film’s reviews have been awful with a 15% RT critic score, while audiences have given it a ho-hum C+ CinemaScore and a lousy 55% RT audience score.

It must be said that despite all of this, the film’s projected numbers did climb as the weekend went on, so it’s not all bad. And in another point for the film’s favor, this didn’t have a budget at the level of recent superhero flops like The Flash and The Marvels. Madame Web wasn’t cheap, but the $80 million budget makes it look a lot closer to Blue Beetle’s box office prospects than the bomb status of those other films.

Madame Web is doing fine (but not great) overseas, where it brought in $25.7 million for a worldwide start of $51.5 million through Monday. The general feeling is that this film won’t be profitable, but it also won’t lose Sony a ton of money. Its domestic total should be somewhere around $60 million and if it can hold on decently overseas, Sony won’t feel the burn too badly here.

Argylle was down 25% over the three-day frame with $4.7 million and a projected $5.6 million through Monday. The action comedy is fighting to bring its losses down as much as opposable and is currently at $37.2 million domestically and $77.2 million worldwide. Those would be solid numbers if not for the $200 million budget. It should end its domestic run with somewhere between $45 million and $50 million, not a good result.

Migration saw a nice bump over the weekend, up 28% from last weekend with $3.8 million through Sunday and $5 million through Monday. The Illumination animated comedy is now at $116.1 million and $256.1 million worldwide, a very solid hit against a $72 million budget. Its final domestic total looks to be around $125 million or so.

The Chosen: Season 4 Episodes 4-6 took the place of Episodes 1 – 3 in theaters for Fathom Events and brought in $3.4 million, with $4.1 million through Sunday. The faith-based drama episodes opened on Wednesday and has totaled $4.8 million thus far, below the three-day openings of the last two batches of episodes ($5.9 million for Season 4 Episodes 1 – 3, $8.8 million for Season 3 Episodes 1 & 2). The next batch of episodes are coming in just two weeks and this batch will be gone by then, so it should end up with around $8 million before leaving theaters after next weekend.

Wonka also rose this weekend, up 11% in its tenth frame to gross $3.4 million through Sunday and $4.4 million through Monday. The Timothee Chalamet-led film has racked up $210.8 million domestically and has hit a new milestone with $605.9 million worldwide, huge numbers against a $125 million budget. The film is now looking at finishing its domestic run around $220 million by the end of its North American run.

The Beekeeper keeps on trucking, down a mere 4% in its sixth weekend with $3.3 million and $3.9 million through Monday. The Jason Statham action thriller has reached $60.5 million domestically and $143.8 million worldwide, fantastic numbers for a film that cost $40 million. It is looking on par to close out around $65 million or perhaps even higher, a strong success for Amazon-MGM.

Anyone But You nosed down by 9% in its ninth weekend with $2.4 million over three days and $2.8 million through Sunday. The Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney romcom now has $82.9 million stateside and $173 million worldwide against a budget of just $25 million. It is likely to finish out around $88 million.

Lisa Frankenstein was down 45% in its second weekend as it fell all the way from #2 to #9. The teen horror romcom added $2 million through Sunday and $2.4 million through Monday. It has tallied up $8 million domestically with barely any play overseas yet. It should be fine against a $13 million budget but with a final domestic gross around $12 million or so, it’s not the hit that Focus Features hoped for.

A surprise entry landed at #10 in the box office as Land of Bad brought in $1.8 million over three days and $2.1 million through Monday. The action flick stars Liam Hemsworth and Russell Crowe and had virtually zero attention coming into the weekend as a film being released theatrically and on VOD on the same day. And while critics weren’t impressed (the RT score is 56%), it was able to rack up a bit of money on star power alone.

Land of Bad will vanish quickly, but this film was made for VOD anyway so this is all just extra for it. No word on the budget but The Avenue Entertainment will be happy, as this is their highest start for a film ever.

Next weekend will likely see a bit of a fight for #1 as One Love takes on Demon Slayer: To the Hashira Training. The anime film is expected to target the low to mid-teens. Also opening are Ethan Coen’s road comedy Drive-Away Dolls, which should start in the low single digits, and Lionsgate’s faith-based drama Ordinary Angels which should be in the high single digits.

BOX OFFICE TOP TEN (Four-Day Domestic Numbers)
1. Bob Marley: One Love – $33.2 million ($51.1 million total, $80.1 million WW)
2. Madame Web – $17.6 million ($25.8 million total, $51.5 million WW)
3. Argylle – $5.6 million ($37.2 million total, $77.2 million WW)
4. Migration – $5 million ($116.1 million total, $256.1 million WW)
5. The Chosen: Season 4 Episodes 4-6 – $4.1 million ($4.8 million total, $4.8 million WW)
6. Wonka – $4.4 million ($210.8 million total, $605.9 million WW)
7. The Beekeeper – $3.9 million ($60.5 million total, $143.8 million WW)
8. Anyone But You – $2.8 million ($82.9 million total, $173 million WW)
9. Lisa Frankenstein – $2.4 million ($8 million total, $6.2 million WW)
10. Land of Bad – $2.1 million ($2.1 million total, $2.1 million WW)