Source: collider.com/By Rahul Malhotra
Elsewhere, ‘Wonka’ and ‘Migration’ continued pulling crowds despite having played in theaters for over two months.
The domestic box office showed some signs of life after a couple of weeks in the doldrums, with two major new releases drawing different levels of interest among audiences. Paramount’s music biopic, Bob Marley: One Love, continued to exceed expectations after debuting mid-week, on Valentine’s Day, and Sony’s latest attempt to piggyback on the popularity of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Madame Web, opened to soft numbers on the back of toxic reviews.
Starring Kingsley Ben-Adir and directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green, One Love made a record-breaking $14 million on Wednesday, and added nearly $4 million on Thursday. On its first Friday of release, the biopic grossed $7.5 million, taking its running domestic total to $25 million in three days. Produced on a reported budget of $70 million, One Love focuses on a chapter in the life of reggae icon Bob Marley. The movie is projected to gross around $46 million in its extended six-day debut — from Valentine’s Day on Wednesday to President’s Day on Monday.
One Love debuted to mixed reviews from critics — it currently sits at a “rotten” 43% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes — but it scored top reactions from audiences. The film earned an excellent A CinemaScore from opening day crowds, and currently has a 94% audience rating on RT. Collider’s Nate Richard praised Ben-Adir and Lashana Lynch’s performances, but was critical of the storytelling.
There’s little hope, however, for Madame Web, the latest in Sony’s Spider-Man spin-off series, which also includes Venom, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, and Morbius. The bar wasn’t too high to cross, but Madame Web is poised to deliver the lowest opening of the series, after earning a worse RT score (13%) than that of even the universally-derided Morbius (15%). Starring Dakota Johnson, Madame Web grossed $6 million on Wednesday, followed by $2.1 million on Thursday and $4.3 million on Friday. This takes the film’s running domestic haul to around $12 million in three days, with a projected $24 million haul across six days.
Apple’s big-budget dud, Argylle, added $1.1 million on its third Friday, and is expected to generate around $5 million by Monday, which should take its running domestic total to $35 million. This would have been a poor result for the film, considering its stacked cast, regardless of the fact that it cost a reported $200 million to produce.
Also in contention for the top five this weekend are two phenomenal holdovers — Universal’s Migration and Warner Bros.’ Wonka. While the animated film will challenge Argylle with a projected $5 million haul across four days, taking its running domestic total to $116 million after eight full weeks, Wonka is eyeing around $4.5 million by Monday, which will take its domestic gross to $211 million after 10 weeks. Elsewhere, Fathom’s release of the fourth through sixth episodes of The Chosen grossed $1 million on Friday. The previous batch of episodes generated nearly $14 million in two weeks. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.