Paramount’s musical biopic Bob Marley: One Love took over the box office this weekend, with $51 million over the six-day stretch ($27.7 million for the traditional weekend numbers). This is keeping Paramount in the victory slot, already with Mean Girls ($30 million over the MLK weekend) for old-school movie movies taking up the lights again. And this trend is undoubtedly to continue once John Krasinski’s IF drops in theaters in May, as it’ll be 2024’s truest original theatrical.
Much like horror, live-action musicals seem to have their say now in theatrical distribution. Crowdpleasers a la Wonka, The Greatest Showman, Elvis, and La La Land keep the marquee characters alive in fiction and reality, and many of the old guards enjoy the lights shed on the songs that bedazzled folks for generations to come. Concert films also keep similar characteristics, with the recent Eras Tour pulling in $261 million worldwide. So, in Paramount’s case, they should keep the bells ringing for some numbers to keep swaying towards their endeavors for the first half of the year, as the rest of the studios hope to spring up business once the hard hitters start up in March. Coyote vs. Acme, anyone?
Meanwhile, superhero colors clearly buckled much like they did throughout 2023 (with the exception of Guardians 3 and Across the Spider-Verse) with another notoriously poor debut of another superhero movie without its genuine IP involved (Spider-Man). Madame Web‘s reviews have floundered, even with a C+ from CinemaScore, and further indicated that audiences don’t want “just” another superhero movie as they did a decade ago; it has to be something unique and takes the direction to another sense of possibility. I’m one for arguing James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad could’ve benefitted further had it not felt like another sequel to its disastrously-received predecessor in 2016 and falling into the COVID times where folks could open up HBO Max to refrain from going to the multiplex.
The recent slew of Marvel/DC downturns has unfolded like a pack of dominoes. Madame Web suffered from Morbius‘s sins. The Marvels felt the fatigue and failure of Ant-Man 3. Black Adam, Shazam 2, and The Flash kneecapped Blue Beetle and Aquaman 2. Sony’s “non-Spider-Man involved universe” has continued a trend of mediocrity worse than the DCEU, and it doesn’t help when your latest flick gets $15.1 million in its debut (per traditional weekend numbers) and reviews that make Morbius look better in retrospect. Will it bomb? Most assuredly, so Sony can only cling to the hope that Venom 3 will displace these losses. Or, settle a new deal so Disney and Sony can work together to make some reliable products going forward if you’re not utilizing the superhero everyone wants to see.
In other news, Argylle earned $4.72 million in its third weekend, bringing it to $76.5 million globally (once again, 2024’s first major box office bomb), Migration has passed $250 globally (a nice win for Dreamworks), and Wonka has passed $600 million worldwide (being the winter season’s true hit with mighty legs). Episodes 4-6 of The Chosen: Season 4 took in $3.44 million, and Anyone But You “could” pass $200 million worldwide before the month ends.
With the turmoil, this is the worst-performing President’s Day weekend in modern history. Oh, how the trends need to pick up from here.
Next weekend sees the release of Drive-Away Dolls, Ordinary Angels, Parallel, and Red Right Hand.
