[ad_1]
Paramount’s musical biopic “Bob Marley: One Love” once again reigned supreme in a barren box office landscape.
The film grossed $13.5 million from 3,925 North American theaters in its second weekend of release, a 53% decline from its debut. “One Love” has been a surprise box office hit with $71.1 million domestically and $120 million worldwide. It costs $70 million and the studio only keeps about half of the ticket sales, so it will have to keep singing in theaters to justify its cost.
“Bob Marley” topped the charts for the second weekend in a row despite three new releases. Sony and Crunchyroll’s anime sequel, “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba — To the Hashira Training,” did best among newcomers with $11.5 million in 1,949 theaters, good enough for second place .
Hilary Swank’s inspiring drama, “Ordinary Angels,” came in third with an uninspiring $6.2 million from 3,020 theaters, while director Ethan Coen’s comedic thriller, “Drive-Away Dolls,” landed in eighth. place with a dismal figure of 2.5 million dollars in 2,280 theaters.
For “Demon Slayer,” its initial ticket sales are slightly better than those of its predecessor, the 2023 anime adventure “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba — To the Swordsmith Village” ($10.1 million in its opening weekend). ), but well behind 2021’s “Demon Slayer: Mugen. Train” (an impressive $21 million amid pandemic-era theater closures). However, “Mugen Train” was a traditional movie, while “Kimetsu no Yaiba – To the Hashira Training” is the end of the third season (and the beginning of the fourth season) of the manga television series. In any case, these anime films tend to resemble horror films in terms of ticket sales, with intense performances dropping substantially in subsequent weekends. They also make most of their revenue at the international box office.
The faith-based film “Ordinary Angels” isn’t exactly lighting up the box office. But the Lionsgate and Kingdom Story Company film reportedly has a modest double-digit budget, which could soften a single-digit debut. Audiences (60% were women and 91% were over the age of 25) responded enthusiastically to the film’s wellness themes, giving it an “A+” CinemaScore. (Such high ratings are common in faith-based movies.) Directed by Jon Gunn, it is based on the true story of a small-town hairdresser who finds a renewed sense of purpose when she meets a widower who is working to make ends meet for her young daughters.
“When faith-based dramas connect, they can thrive, and ‘Ordinary Angels’ is primed to do so,” predicts David A. Gross of film consulting firm Franchise Entertainment Research. However, he adds, “religious dramas are screened almost exclusively in the domestic market, with limited potential abroad.”
Moviegoers didn’t seem to connect with “Drive-Away Dolls,” which earned a lukewarm “C” grade on CinemaScore and has a 66% on Rotten Tomatoes. Margaret Qualley, Geraldine Viswanathan and Beanie Feldstein star in the R-rated film, which follows two friends who embark on an impromptu road trip to Florida, where they cross paths with some bumbling criminals.
“Drive-Away Dolls” was acquired for $20 million. Focus Features, which produced the queer crime caper with Working Title, opted to give the film a wider release than the average specialty release. Independent films often release in a few theaters to generate word of mouth before expanding nationwide. In this case, the studios say they wanted to have a larger footprint from the jump because there is not as much competition in the market. Others respond that a platform release wouldn’t help a film that received such negative reviews.
“Madame Web” could not overcome its poor reception and fell to fourth place. It grossed $6 million in 4,103 theaters, a sharp drop of 61% compared to its initial release. Sony’s “Spider-Man” spinoff movie, starring Dakota Johnson as a paramedic with psychic abilities, cost $80 million to make and has made a soft $35 million to date. It is emerging as the second big flop of the year after Matthew Vaughn’s “Argylle,” with a budget of $200 million and which has grossed only $86 million worldwide.
Universal and Illumination’s animated comedy “Migration” rounded out the top five with $3 million from 2,434 theaters in its 10th opening weekend. To date, the family film has grossed $120 million at the domestic box office and $268 million worldwide.
Overall, it’s been a slow box office weekend with revenue down about 18% from 2023. So, movie theater owners have been eagerly awaiting Denis Villeneuve’s big-budget sequel, “Dune: Part Two,” which arrives on March 1 and is expected to be released. a much-needed box office jolt.
“The industry has waited patiently for more than eight long weekends to finally get to the first blockbuster release of 2024,” says Paul Dergarabedian, senior analyst at Comscore. “That’s only a week away.”