Moviegoing is slowly going back into fashion today with Paramount’s Bob Marley: One Love biopic seeing an estimated $12M. For a movie playing on Valentine’s Day midweek, that’s a record besting the $11.6M made by the 2012 Channing Tatum and Rachel McAdams romance, The Vow.
Sony/Marvel’s Madame Web trails with $5M-$5.5M today.
Projecting out six-days is a bit iffy at this point. Some believe Bob Marley is front-loaded, yet there’s a big argument to be made that this movie should not be comped to Color Purple. What movie is about a bestselling iconic performer and the other is a Broadway musical. Nonetheless, at this point, studios are sticking to ther forecasts of $30M+ for Bob Marley: One Love over six days, and $20M+ for Madame Web.
Reviews for Bob Marley: One Love are at 41% Rotten, however, it’s believed that the audience scores will come in higher for the Reinaldo Marcus Green directed, Kingsley Ben-Adir starring biopic. Already RT audience scores stand at 100%.
Reviews for the Dakota Johnson-Sydney Sweeney starring Madame Web are horrible at 17% on RT. Audience score is low at 58% currently.
For those keeping score, the movie with highest gross on Valentine’s Day belongs to 20th Century Fox/Marvel’s Deadpool with $42.6M.
It isn’t common for a movie to open hard on Valentine’s Day. Neither Bob Marley nor Madame Web had any previews. Previous midweek Valentine’s Day opening titles include 2019’s Alita: Battle Angel ($8.7M Thursday), 2013’s A Good Day to Die Hard ($8.2M Thursday) and feature take of Nicholas Sparks novel Safe Haven ($8.8M Thursday).