Marley stirs it up at box office
Amid low ticket sales, the star’s biopic shows that individual films can still perform well.
Growing up in San Diego, our local alt-rock radio station, 91X, graced listeners with a dose of Bob Marley’s music every weekday at around 4:20 p.m. The segment, which often highlighted a rarity from the reggae great’s catalog or a cut from a live performance, was dubbed “Mandatory Marley” and lives on to this day as a celebration of his art, life and legacy.
The point being, my old hometown adores Bob Marley. It also, without a
trace of irony, loves ska and all things adjacent to it, but that’s another story (if anyone happens to be working on a Sublime biopic and needs a cultural consultant, I have some numbers you can call).
Anyway, perhaps this is personal bias at work, but it came as no surprise to me that Paramount Pictures’ new biographical drama, “Bob Marley: One Love,” directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green of “King Richard” fame, significantly exceeded box office expectations during its opening weekend.
The picture, starring Kingsley Ben-Adir as the Jamaican singer-songwriter, grossed a studioestimated $52 million in the U.S. and Canada during its six-day opening.
The release blew away Sony’s critically panned Marvel movie “Madame Web,” based on an obscure character from the SpiderMan comics, which debuted to a weak $26.2 million and a poor audience response. Both opened on Valentine’s Day, a Wednesday.
The success of the musical biopic, which had the support and participation of Marley’s family, came despite lousy reviews from film critics, who gave it a 43% score on Rotten Tomatoes. “One Love” cost about $70 million to make, which isn’t cheap, but the audience response is strong, indicated by an “A” grade from polling firm CinemaScore, meaning it should keep doing solid business in the coming weeks.
It’s a much-needed relief for movie theaters that have been starved for compelling studio releases since the beginning of the year. Domestic ticket sales are down 17% so far this year compared to the same stretch of time in 2023, according to data compiled by Comscore. (More on that in a bit.)
Why did the Marley movie work? Musical biopics have a strong track record, especially when the subject is a true cultural touchstone with continued relevance that crosses demographic lines, like Elvis Presley (“Elvis”), Queen (“Bohemian Rhapsody”), Elton John (“Rocketman”) and N.W.A. (“Straight Outta Compton”). Not all work theatrically (see “Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody”), but this is, for the most part, a reliable genre. Focus Features has another coming in May with “Back to Black,” about Amy Winehouse.
“One Love” over-indexed with nonwhite moviegoers, with Black audiences accounting for 31% of opening sales and Latinos making up 25%. But the film is also benefiting from the wide attraction that Marley, reggae culture and his peace-and-love message enjoy among the audience, said David A. Gross, who runs a movie consultancy and writes the FranchiseRe newsletter about the box office.
“Bob Marley and reggae have been a very popular of music, since the ’70s,” Gross told me over the weekend.
“The appeal is broad. It resonates with surfers, it resonates with the 420 crowd, it resonates with high schoolers, and that’s happening with the movie too,” Gross added. “It’s really crossing over.”
Indeed, Marley for many people is not just a musician but also symbolizes joyful rebellion and positive vibes. Owning a copy of “Legend,” the posthumously released Bob Marley and the Wailers greatest hits compilation album, was practically a prerequisite of admission into the University of California system, or at least it was when I stepped onto the lagoon-side campus of UC Santa Barbara and owning albums on compact disc was still a thing.
There’s also just not that much else appealing to moviegoers right now. January and February are often dreary months for movie houses, coming after the holidays and in the midst of awards season. It’s generally not a big blockbuster corridor, with studios saving their most viable product for spring and summer.
Part of this year’s shortfall is due to the lack of a big holdover like “Avatar: The Way of Water” to boost business for multiplexes in January.
But it’s also just a symptom of a weak release slate. Jason Statham action flick “The Beekeeper” managed to gross a strong $59.9 million and “Mean Girls” did decently with $66 million. But “Argylle,” “The Book of Clarence” and “Lisa Frankenstein” bombed in classic “Dumpuary” fashion. The year wasn’t expected to truly kick off until March 1, with Legendary and Warner Bros.’ ambitious sci-fi sequel “Dune: Part Two.”
By this time last year, Disney had released “AntMan and the Wasp: Quantumania,” a disappointment by Marvel Studios standards but enough of a draw to keep theaters busy. In contrast, this year’s schedule has been slow enough that a middling rom-com like “Anyone but You,” which was released in December, managed to quietly gross more than $80 million domestically.
Hollywood was already in a sour mood about its box office prospects this year because of the dual strikes last summer that thinned out the release calendar by delaying multiple productions.
The main problem is a lack of movies. Cinemark Chief Executive Sean Gamble last week said the exhibitor expects 95 wide release titles in its theaters this year, which would be about 75% of pre-pandemic levels. Last year, there were 110 wide releases, or 85% of the volume before the COVID-19 shutdowns.
Output should bounce back in 2025, continuing the business’ recovery, but it’s likely to be a rough year, notwithstanding anticipation for “Kung Fu Panda 4,” “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,” “Inside Out 2” and “Twisters.”
The DC universe is effectively taking the year off, apart from Todd Phillips’ musical “Joker” sequel. The only Marvel Studios release is “Deadpool & Wolverine,” which should inject some adrenaline into the flagging superhero genre following its trailer unveiling during Super Bowl LVIII.
“It’s not like people don’t go to the movies in January and February,” Gross said. “It’s strictly product driven. It really is, there’s no other way around that. And that’s why it’s gonna take time. The schedule going forward will get better, but it’s not back to what it was.”
That said, you never know what can break out (“Barbenheimer,” “Sound of Freedom,” “Five Nights at Freddy’s” and so on), especially in a year with less competition.
“The wind went out of the sails, and now we’re going to have to just crank up the momentum again to get things going as we head towards the summer movie season,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior analyst at Comscore. “It’s a numbers game, but it’s also a momentum game and a gut feeling game for the industry.”