Quiet as Super Bowl weekend usually is for Movies, it’s Sony’s “Bad Boys For Life” that makes the most noise, holding on to the top box office spot for a third consecutive week. Taking around $17.4M (as of Saturday) the film not only looks set to pass $150M in the US, but its widely unpredicted success appears to have convinced Sony to green light a fourth film in the franchise. In fact the films worldwide success has convinced opposing studio Warner Bros to dust off their own cop franchise “Lethal Weapon” with rumors hot that a fifth film starring Mel Gibson and Danny Glover is on the way.
Landing in second this week and making one final push before next weeks Oscars is Best a picture front runner “1917”. Universal’s war epic appears to have its eyes on at least 5/6 awards come Sunday including Best Director for Sam Mendes. Figures wise the film took in a respectable $9.4M, pushing its total past $119M. Though at this point Universal will have their hearts set on repeating their best picture success of last year with “Green Book”.
Solid in third is another a Universal picture, however an undoubted underachiever. Their Robert Downey Jr starring “Dolittle” managed around $8M in its third weekend, pushing its total to a measly $55M, however the studio has known for weeks now that they are going to have to accept a huge loss on the remake.
Fourth place will be decided later tonight when the actuals are released, as Guy Ritchie and STX’s “The Gentlemen” looks to push “Jumanji: The Next Level” out the top four for the first time since its December release. Saturday estimates have the films neck and neck at around $5.8 and $6M respectively.
Elsewhere this week, new releases “The Rhythm Section” and “Gretel & Hansel” both fell below expectations; however, it’s Paramount’s Blake Lively led spy thriller that suffered the most. Opening in over 3000 locations, the film managed only $2.9M, appearing to land the film only just inside the top 10. This marks a disappointing start for a film with a long road to the screen following production delays. It remains to be seen if its international tally could claw back any of the rumored $50M budget of the film. Meanwhile Orion’s fantasy flick landed slightly below expectations with around $5.7M from near enough the same amount of locations, whilst the film did perform better than expected with critics, sitting at around 60% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Next week should see the biggest opening weekend of the year so far, with Warner Bros “Birds of Prey” looking to capitalize on good early reactions and land a huge opening weekend. Starring Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn from “Suicide Squad” the studio will be hoping to get close, or even surpass the $133M opening of David Ayer’s film from 2016.
Bad Boys For Life – $17.7M ($148M Overall)
1917 – $9.7M ($119M)
Dolittle – $7.7M ($55M)
Gretel and Hansel – $6.1M
The Gentlemen – $6.01M ($20M)
Jumanji: The Next Level – $6M ($291M)
Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker – $3.2M ($507M)
The Turning – $3.1M ($11.7M)
Little Women – $3M ($99M)
The Rhythm Section – $2.8M