Weekend Wrap-Up: Bad Boys Gives the Box Office Life

January 22, 2020

Bad Boys for Life

The first long weekend of the year was fantastic at the box office as Bad Boys for Life set a number of box office records, including MLK Long Weekend Opening Record, which is arguably the most prestigious of the records it set. Dolittle, on the other hand, managed to avoid embarrassing itself, which is about as good as it was going to get after its troubled production. Overall, the box office had amazing growth from last weekend, improving by 25% to $166 million. More importantly, this is 28% higher than the same weekend last year. Year-to-date, 2020 is ahead of 2019 by 10.5% or $63 million at $666 million to $602 million; however, every little bit helps. We don’t have an Endgame this year, so getting off to a fast start will be more important than usual.

Bad Boys for Life beat expectations during its previews and it just kept getting better as the weekend wore on. In the end, the film opened with $62.50 million / $73.03 million over the weekend, making the fastest opening film in the franchise; in fact, it has already topped the first film’s total domestic box office in just four days. That is simply fantastic. Granted, there’s a lot of inflation to deal with here, but no one is going to argue that this film isn’t a success and no one should be surprised that Sony is already working on a sequel. As for this film’s long term chances, there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic. Its reviews are strong enough to earn a Certified Fresh rating from Rotten Tomatoes, at least according to their About page, but they haven’t changed the icon yet. The film also managed a great A-rating from CinemaScore and both of these suggest long legs, at least for an action film that opened on a holiday weekend. The film will blow past its $90 million production budget and only needs about $160 million to $170 million domestically to pay back that cost. I could see that happening, assuming the upcoming competition isn’t that tough.

1917 and / or Dolittle finished in second place, depending on how you look at things. 1917 earned second place over the three-day weekend with $21.98 million, but slipped to third place if you include Monday earning $26.91 million. The film has $81.52 million, including Monday, and it should have very little trouble getting to $100 million, especially if it tops expectations on Oscar night. It was an expensive movie to make costing $100 million, but I think Universal is happy with its run so far.

The same can’t be said of Dolittle, which opened with $21.84 million / $28.30 million. This would have been fine for the average live-action family film, but it is close to a disaster for a film that cost $175 million to make. Add in the film’s reviews and its mere B-rating from CinemaScore and it has little hope of long legs. Maybe it will do better internationally, but it would have to have an amazing run overseas to break even any time soon.

Jumanji: The Next Level earned a comfortable fourth place with $9.70 million / $12.66 million over the weekend, pushing its running tally to $273.57 million. It did better than expected over the weekend, so maybe it can get to $300 million domestically.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker rounded out the top five with $8.29 million / $10.59 million over the weekend for a total of $494.24 million. The film is mere days away from becoming just the third film of 2019 to get to $500 million domestically.

One last note, Weathering with You only managed 15th place, but it still wowed box office analysts with an opening weekend of $1.81 million / $2.23 million over the weekend for a total opening of $5.28 million after six days of release. That’s simply amazing for an Anime release and it is already the biggest hit in GKIDS’ history. Add in its reviews and it could be part of a growing trend for Anime in the west.

- Monday Box Office Chart - Weekend Box Office Chart
- Friday Box Office Chart
- Thursday Box Office Chart
- Wednesday Box Office Chart

- Friday Estimates
- Thursday Night Previews
- Weekend Predictions
- Theater Counts

- Biggest Single Day in January
- MLK Long Weekend Opening Record
- 2020 Domestic Box Office Chart

Filed under: Weekend Wrap-up, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Bad Boys For Life, Dolittle, Jumanji: The Next Level, 1917, Weathering with You (天気の子), Bad Boys