‘Bob Marley’ Heads Into Presidents’ Day Weekend With $17.9 Million at Box Office

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Music biopic sets Valentine’s Day record while “Madame Web” is left far behind

Kingsley Ben-Adir as “Bob Marley” in "Bob Marley: One Love"
Kingsley Ben-Adir as “Bob Marley” in "Bob Marley: One Love" (Paramount Pictures)

Paramount’s “Bob Marley: One Love” is heading into Presidents’ Day weekend with plenty of momentum and $17.9 million grossed at the domestic box office, including a $14 million opening day total that’s the highest ever for a mid-week Valentine’s Day release.

Buoyed by fans of the reggae legend and couples going out to the movies on Feb. 14, the music biopic is on pace to meet if not clear projections of a $30 million – $35 million 6-day opening. While critics have been mixed on the film with a 43% Rotten Tomatoes score, opening night audiences gave it their seal of approval with an A on CinemaScore.

The question now is whether that will be enough to draw in moviegoers who are not fans of Bob Marley to give it a shot. With solid overseas numbers expected to come in throughout the weekend thanks to Marley’s international following, “One Love” should post a decent theatrical profit against its $70 million budget; but we won’t know until next weekend whether the film is attracting a wider crowd.

Things are looking far less rosy for Sony/Columbia’s “Madame Web,” which also hit theaters on Valentine’s Day and is making half of what “Bob Marley” has made with a running total of $8.2 million through Thursday.

Sony is projecting a 6-day opening of $26.8 million for “Madame Web,” slightly above independent projections of $25 million but well short of the film’s reported $80 million budget. It’s unlikely that the film will even make back that amount in domestic grosses as both audience and critics’ reception has been poor with a C+ on CinemaScore and an abysmal 14% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes.

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