Bob Marley: One Love continued to strum up business for a second weekend, earning an additional $13.5 million to bring its domestic total to $71.1M. Globally, it has already crossed the $120M mark — quite impressive for a lower-budget movie. This is tracking on par with other recent music biopics like Rocketman and Bohemian Rhapsody. One Love is tracking well ahead of the Whitney Houston film I Wanna Dance With Somebody. Elvis outpaced all of these, but that was… different. That was a larger tentpole. However, over their entire runs, Bohemian Rhapsody and another, slightly older film, Straight Outta Compton made more money than Elvis.
Coming in at #2 is Sony/Crunchyroll’s Demon Slayer Kimetsu no Yaiba -To the Hashira Training with $10.8M.This is just slightly higher than last year’s theatrical release, Demon Slayer Into the Swordsmith Village, which opened with $11.6M.
The only people who went to see it were already fans of the franchise, so they were obviously favorable, giving this latest release a B+ and 84% positive via PostTrak. Critics gave mostly positive reviews, with its Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer sitting at 78%. Its audience score is 84%.
Perhaps the reason that the audience scores aren’t higher is that this isn’t a new product. This is just two episodes of the TV series that have already been released, just not on the big screen.
Speaking of movies that are preaching to the choir (in this case, literally), the other new entry this weekend was Ordinary Angels, another low-budget faith-based film aimed at the underserved Christian audience. The difference here is that this one features an actual star in Hillary Swank. The picture also includes Reacher lead Alan Ritchson, whose visibility has been on the rise for a while now.
In its first weekend, Ordinary Angels took in $6.5M. Not surprisingly, the faithful gave this an A+ CinemaScore and its RT audience score is 99%. And surprisingly, its critical score is remarkably high for a faith-based film at 80%. These movies usually get trashed by critics.
The arrivals of Demon Slayer and Ordinary Angels meant bad news for last week’s #2 entry, Madame Web. Well, maybe the competition isn’t what did that picture in — It’s the the fact that that movie is just plain bad and everyone knows it at this point.
However, comparatively speaking, Madame Web only dropped 64%, which is better than the atrocious 78% plunge that The Marvels took or the 74% decline that Morbius experienced.
In its second frame, Madame Web earned $6M, bringing its domestic total to $35.4M.
Somehow, Migration is still hanging onto the Top Five, with a $3M haul this weekend, meaning that the other new release for this frame, Drive-Away Dolls completely tanked, earning just $2.4M and missing the Top Five.
See below:
- Bob Marley: One Love (Paramount) – 3-day $13.5M/ Total $71.1M/ Wk 2
- Demon Slayer Kimetsu no Yaiba -To the Hashira Training (Sony/Crunchyroll) – 3-day $11.6M/ Wk 1
- Ordinary Angels (Lionsgate) – 3-day $6.5M/ Wk 1
- Madame Web (Sony) – 3-day $6M/ Total $35.4M/ Wk 2
- Migration (Illumination/ Universal) – 3-day $3M/ Total $120.4M/ Wk 10
After a quiet winter, get ready to head to the desert for salvation. Denis Villeneuve’s Dune Part Two will be the first MAJOR release of 2024. Not only is this spectacle highly anticipated by fans starved for big tentpoles, but it’s already generating awards buzz. True, it’s way too early to get that far ahead of ourselves, but consider that not only did the first Dune do well at theaters (although it was undercut by a day-and-date release on HBO Max), but it was also critically acclaimed. So never say never.
With a spectacular 97% Rotten Tomatoes score, Dune Part Two is eyeing a $65-$75M debut which would make it the best so far this year.
Are you excited to see Dune Part Two? What other movies are you looking forward to?
