“Bad Boys for Life” Fires on MLK Weekend

By: Keaton Marcus

Diving into the weekend, Sony’s Bad Boys for Life easily took control of the weekend with a stellar MLK debut, generating another solid hit for the studio, and bringing the dormant franchise back to life with an impressive performance. Otherwise, the big-budget Dolittle also opened, but to average results, but at least their marginally better than the critical response! The last three spots were taken by holdovers such as 1917, Jumanji: The Next Level and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

As mentioned, riding high in first was Sony/Columbia’s Bad Boys for Life which opened to an excellent 62.2M in three days, contributing to a MLK four-day weekend of 73.4M from a total of 3,775 locations. The performance is far higher than the original 40-45M expectations, and make it the second largest MLK and January debut of all-time. Comparatively, we should look at the likes of John Wick: Chapter 3 (56.8M), Hobbs & Shaw (60M), Straight Outta Compton (60.2M) and perhaps Mission: Impossible - Fallout which opened to 61.2M in 2018. The four comps above make an average multiplier of 3.05x, which would mean a finish of around 189M, which seems very possible considering the word-of-mouth.

Internationally, Bad Boys took in an estimated 38.6M from 39 markets, resulting in a global launch of 112M. Germany was the flick’s biggest opening with 5.1M, followed by Mexico (3.8M), Spain (2.2M), while 12 markets in the Middle East garnered 5.1M in total. Despite its budget capping the 90M mark, the worldwide debut is a good sign, and it should be very simple to break even. Upcoming releases include France (Jan 22), Russia (Jan 23), Brazil (Jan 30), Japan (Jan 31) and Italy (Feb 20).

Review wise, the third installment surprisingly earned some solid reviews, and incredible audience reception. On Sweet and Sour Movies, we gave it a firm 75/100 “sweet” saying that it “wakes up the dormant franchise with some good old fun.” On RottenTomatoes, other critics were aligned with me, giving it a weighted average of 75% “Fresh” based on 190 reviews with a consensus of: “loaded up with action and a double helping of leading-man charisma, Bad Boys for Life reinvigorates this long-dormant franchise by playing squarely to its strengths.” Audiences gave it a nearly flawless 97% approval rating on RT, and a stunning A CinemaScore.

In runner-up was Universal’s 1917 which scored 22M over its sophomore session, resulting in 26.8M over four days. This addition contributes to a total of 81.4M domestically after 27 days of release (including limited), and it should hope to top the 100M mark next weekend or so. Internationally, the film added another 26M from 37 markets, for a foreign gross of 61.9M and a worldwide total of 143.3M.

Thirdly, Universal didn’t do as well with their CGI-laden reboot Dolittle, which outperformed expectations, but not far enough to create a balance with its 175M production budget. With just 21.9M for the three-day weekend, this expensive dud earned only 29.5M over four days from a large 4,155 sites. For the finish, reviews were dreadful, while audiences gave it a B CinemaScore, so perhaps it could go on to top 90-100M stateside, but that’s a major if. For now, we’re going conservative with about 80M.

Overseas, things didn’t go much better as the film picked up another 17.2M from 46 markets after debuting last week, for an international bout of 27.3M and a worldwide launch of 56.8M, not nearly enough to make up for its bloated cost. Australia led the way with a 2.4M debut, followed by Indonesia (2.1M), however the movie’s largest market remains Korea, where it capped 10.6M this weekend. While the situation seems pretty dismal, there’s still plenty of key markets yet to be released, such as Argentina (Jan 23), Spain (Jan 24), Vietnam (Jan 25), Germany (Jan 30), Italy (Jan 30), Mexico (Jan 31), France (Feb 5), the UK (Feb 7), Brazil (Feb 20), Russia (Feb 20), China (Feb 21) and Japan (Mar 20).

In fourth place we saw Sony’s Jumanji: The Next Level continuing its rock-solid box office performance, earning another 9.6M for the weekend, and 12.8M over four days. This makes for North American sales totals topping 273.7M after 39 days in release. Internationally, the film also continued to strive with an additional 17M, bringing its overseas gross to 438.3M and a massive worldwide running cume of 712M.

Rounding out the top five was Disney’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker which dipped 45% for a weekend of 8.3M, with 10.5M over the MLK boost. The ninth installment has now gathered over 494.1M domestically, and will top the 500M mark by this week or next weekend. Internationally, the film added another 10.9M for an overseas bout of 534.6M and a worldwide total topping the one billion mark (1.028B).

Next weekend, we see two new nationwide releases come into play, including STX’s crime comedy The Gentlemen and Universal’s horror film The Turning.

TOP FIVE:

Bad Boys for Life
1917
Dolittle
Jumanji: The Next Level
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker