Weekend Box Office

Weekend Box Office Results: Bob Marley: One Love Continues Jamming

Plus, Ethan Coen's solo joint Drive-Away Dolls is off to a rough start, and the new season of anime Demon Slayer debuts its first episodes at No. 2.

by Erik Childress | February 26, 2024 | Comments

Despite another rarefied week in 2024 when audiences were offered multiple new titles on a wide scale at the box office, they chose to return to the same-old, same-old of previous weeks. Sure, they turned up again for a television episode that may have Disney rethinking putting their Marvel shows into theaters for a week or two. Meanwhile, a delayed true story with eyes on a faithful crowd failed to attract a significant audience and a singular Coen brother got a wide release that opened to some of the worst numbers of the year so far.

**King of the Crop: Bob Marley: One Love Continues Jamming**

In its second weekend, Bob Marley: One Love came out on top again. The headlines last week touted its opening of over $51 million, but that was over a six-day stretch. The film’s weekend haul was $28.6 million, which then fell 53% this week down to $13.5 million to bring its 12-day total to $71 million. That puts the Paramount film right in league with the February releases of Daredevil, The Lego Movie 2, and Kingsman: The Secret Service, only those films’ second weekends were between $18-21 million. The former two finished with $102 million and $105 million, respectively, which now calls into question One Love’s chances of reaching $100 million. It’s second weekend was closer to Alita: Battle Angel — still higher by about a million, but if it begins to fall further onto Alita’s path, it could end up between $95-100 million. That is still in a pretty good position to cover its $70 million production costs, as it has grossed another $49 million overseas to date. It may not be a huge victory, but a win is a win for a studio making headlines this week for being put on credit watch negative.

**Rotten Returns: Drive-Away Dolls Off to a Rough Start**

Two weeks ago, Focus Features had their worst wide opening ever on a film put into over 3,000 theaters with Lisa Frankenstein ($3.69 million). This past weekend, not only did that film promptly exit the top 10, but Focus also had one of their worst openings ever for a film in over 2,000 theaters. Ethan Coen’s Drive-Away Dolls was delayed from last year’s September opening (blamed on the strike) and it grossed just $2.4 million in 2,259 theaters. The three films in their history to open worse than that were all during the pandemic in 2020 and 2021 – Come Play ($2.25 million), Let Him Go ($1.94 million), and Profile ($730,290). Lisa Frankenstein’s per-theater average was $1,176. Drive-Away Dolls was $1,053. They are the two lowest PTAs of the year for releases over 2,000 theaters.

**The Top 10 and Beyond: Demon Slayer Lands at No. 2, Migration Hovers in Top 5**

Besting all new feature films this week in second place was Demon Slayer Kimetsu no Yaiba -To the Hashira Training (aka Episode 11). It grossed $11.5 million over the weekend, ahead of what Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba – To the Swordsmith Village opened to last March ($10.1 million) and more than the entire run of Crunchyroll’s Suzume. Not for nothing, but the anime company sure knows how to pick release dates to generate maximum headlines. Their fans do show up, and even if its for only one weekend, it did have the sixth best opening of the year to date. Of course it’s not the only television masquerading as film in theaters in the top 10 this week. The Chosen: Season Four Episodes 4-6 made another $1.8 million to bring its total to $7.8 million, below the $13.9 million finish of episodes 1-3.

Moving into third place is Ordinary Angels from Jon Gunn, the director of Do You Believe and The Case for Christ. The PG-rated film scripted by actress Meg Tilly and Kelly Fremon Craig (of Are You There God?, It’s Me Margaret and The Edge of Seventeen) abandoned last year’s October release date once Taylor Swift moved into it. Despite a pretty good response from critics (81%), the film managed just $6.5 million in its opening. Those who saw it this weekend (and were surveyed) gave Angels an A+ with Cinemascore, the first narrative feature to receive it since Angel Studios’ controversial Sound of Freedom last summer. (Both the Taylor Swift and Beyonce concert films received the same.) This is not much of a surprise given anything with a faith-based slant is normally given that same seal of approval. Jesus Revolution, American Underdog, Overcomer, Unplanned, I Can Only Imagine, and Miracles from Heaven are just a sampling of those to get the top rating. None of them were rated as highly with critics, though, and with the exception of Unplanned, all of them grossed more than three times their opening weekend.

Madame Web last week earned headlines with a $26+ million opening — again, over six days. Its actual weekend haul was just $15 million, which fell 61% to just $6 million. That puts its 12-day total at just $35 million. There is not much to spin out of these totals except that it isn’t going to be a $100+ million loser like a lot of recent comic book failures. This one is headed in the range of $45 million domestic. Not making $100 million globally would be something, and right now, it has approximately $77.4 million total. Devotion was a bigger failure for Sony in comparison, but it is, thus far, the early big failure of 2024.

Staying in the top five for a tenth straight week is Universal and Illumination’s Migration. $3.5 million was enough to hang in there, bringing its total over $121 million domestic and $268+ million globally. That’s a drop in the bucket compared to their Despicable Me, Secret Life of Pets, or Super Mario Bros. movies but more than enough profit to cover Trolls Band Together coming up short. That’s not nearly to chip in enough to cover anything on Argylle, which is down to $2.8 million in its fourth weekend for a mere total of $41.6 million domestic and $86.5 million worldwide.

Rounding out the top 10 this week we see Wonka continuing to make bank with $2.5 million. Its domestic total is now over $214 million and worldwide it is over $617 million. Then we have Jason Statham as The Beekeeper with $1.9 million to bring its total to $63 million domestic and over $146 million worldwide. In other news, Anyone But You has passed $200 million worldwide and Poor Things will surpass $100 million globally this week, making it the first Searchlight film to do so since their Oscar-winning The Shape of Water. Finally, the re-release of Christopher Nolan’s Tenet in 55 IMAX theaters this weekend made an estimated $600,000.

**On the Vine: Dune: Part Two Set to Be the First Blockbuster Hit of 2024**

Dune: Part Two. Exclusively in theaters. Not on (HBO) MAX. The original grossed over $400 million worldwide. How high will the $190 million production climb?