Weekend projections: Bob Marley holds on at top of chart

February 25, 2024

Bob Marley: One Love

A lack of new releases with mass-market appeal will allow Bob Marley: One Love to stay top of the chart at the box office this weekend. The biopic is projected to decline a respectable 53% from the Friday-to-Sunday portion of its opening weekend to earn another $13.5 million on this outing. That’ll take it to around $71 million in total after 12 days in release. Its closest challenger will be Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba—To the Hashira Training, which will come in with an impressive $11.575 million debut. Ordinary Angels is doing good business in third place with a projected $6.5 million opening weekend.

Here’s how the weekend numbers look as of Sunday morning (click on the image for the full chart of films reporting so far)…



Our model is predicting a final box office comfortably over $100 million for Bob Marley: One Love now. If it hits that mark, it’ll be the third biopic to do so since the pandemic, joining Oppenheimer and Elvis—an esteemed list indeed. Internationally, it will pick up another $15 million, with a $1.3 million opening in Italy, plus 7 other new territories, taking its overseas number ahead of its domestic take this weekend. In total, it will end the weekend with $49.4 million internationally and $120.6 million worldwide.

Demon Slayer is coming in a shade ahead of our Friday-morning prediction, and will beat the $10.1 million earned by To the Swordsmith Village on its opening weekend this time last year. Mugen Train comfortably remains the anime record-holder with a $22.8-million opening in 2021, but this is another big number for the franchise.

After posting low preview numbers on Thursday, Ordinary Angels has come charging back through the weekend to earn a projected $6.5 million opening. Excellent word-of-mouth (the film has an A+ CinemaScore) is helping it gather momentum. The film is the fourth wide theatrical release from Kingdom Story Company, which had a hit with Jesus Revolution last year. That film opened with $15.9 million and went on to earn $52 million at the domestic box office. Ordinary Angels is looking more like a $25-million earner, but is still doing well enough to deliver another profit for the studio.

The biggest disappointment this weekend is Drive-Away Dolls. The film is a passion project for Ethan Coen and his partner Tricia Cooke, but unfortunately hasn’t really caught on with critics, nor found its audience this weekend. Its $2.4-million debut will not be enough for it to continue playing in many theaters after next weekend, but it could do some business in the home market.

Overall, the market will be off 25% from last weekend, and continues to run far behind the pace of 2023. This time last year, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania was pulling in $32 million on its second weekend, and Creed III was lining up for a $58.4 million opening weekend. Creed III was the first of six movies to open at the top of the chart with more than $30 million over the following six consecutive weekends, ending with The Super Mario Bros. Movie’ gigantic, $146-million, debut. This year is unlikely to deliver anything like that kind of run, but we should see a significant uptick in business as Dune: Part Two powers into theaters. First, as an IMAX “fan event” today, then as a very wide release this coming Friday. Here’s hoping the spice flows.

- Studio weekend projections
- All-time top-grossing movies in North America
- All-time top-grossing movies worldwide

Please help support The Numbers with a monthly or one-time donation, or by subscribing to The Numbers Business Report. We keep advertising to a minimum, and only for advertisers who we believe are directly of interest to our readers. If you’d like to advertise your movie or service with us, please email us at advertising@the-numbers.com.

Bruce Nash,

Filed under: Ethan Coen, Tricia Cooke