One Love Box Office Crushes Madame Web, Drive-Away Dolls

Hollywood’s latest music biopic, Bob Marley: One Love, continues to jam at the global box office, where it crossed the $100 million mark on Friday, including $61.4 million domestically and $39.7 million overseas, after only 10 days in theaters.

The Paramount movie went on to easily stayed atop this weekend’s domestic box office chart with an estimated $13.5 million from 3,597 locations, pushing its domestic tally to $72.2 million. Marley’s star also continues to shine brightly overseas, where it has amassed $49.4 million for global cume of $120.6 million.

One Love first starting making headlines a week ago when snagging a six-day launch of $51.1 million over the Valentine’s Day-Presidents Day corridor, one of the best openings ever for a music biopic (Straight Outta Compton remains top of the list) and well ahead of the dismal $26 million debut of Sony’s doomed Madame Web.

Madame Web continues to spin out of control. The female-led superhero pic grossed a mere $5.6 million from from 4,013 theaters in its sophomore outing, possibly only good enough for a fifth-place finish. The news is just as bad overseas, where the film has earned $42 million for a worldwide gross of $87.3 million.

The latest installment in the Japanese anime series, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba — to the Hashira Training, from Crunchyroll and Sony, placed No. 2 with an impressive $11.7 million from 1,949 locations.

Ordinary Angels, a faith-based film from Lionsgate starring Hillary Swank, followed with estimated $6.5 million from 3,020 cinemas after earning a coveted A+ CinemaScore from audiences. If that holds, that means Madame Web will fall to No. 5.

Focus Features and Working Title’s specialty film Drive-Away Dolls, which Ethan Coen of Coen brothers fame directed on his own from a script he wrote with Tricia Cooke, his wife, is also spinning out. The lesbian road-trip comedy — slapped with a C CinemaScore —opened to an estimated $2.4 million from 2,280 locations despite a star-studded cast that includes Margaret Qualley, Geraldine Viswanathan, Beanie Feldstein, Pedro Pascal and Matt Damon.

Generally speaking, a specialty title — such as a Coen brothers’ movie — has a small footprint to begin with before platforming. Focus and the filmmakers took a different route and decided to open Drive-Away Girls everywhere in hopes of helping exhibitors who have seen a dramatic slowdown in product throughout January and February. Moviegoers, however, don’t appear to be going along for the ride, although it could spark interest on premium VOD.

Overall domestic box office revenue has been down sharply in January and February due to a lack of product related to strike delays. The landscape should improve on March 1 when Warner Bros. and Legendary open Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two, starring Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya. Warners has begun screening the year’s first tentpole in earnest and Dune 2 currently sports a 97 percent Rotten Tomatoes critics score from just under 150 reviews.

That’s not to say there haven’t been wins, including One Love and fellow Paramount pic Mean Girls. There just haven’t been any all-audience tentpoles. On the specialty side, Searchlights’ Oscar contender Poor Things has been a notable win for the art house side of the business and should cross the $100 million globally this week to become the second most successful specialty pic of the post-pandemic era behind Everything Everywhere All at Once.

Oscar contender American Fiction‘s domestic tally is nearing $20 million for Amazon and MGM Studios, tiday sum. On the commercial side Amazon/MGM’s The Beekeeper has buzzed to $63 million-plus domestically and remains in the top 10.

This story was originally published Feb 24 at 8:38 am.