‘Bad Boys For Life’ On Pace For Massive $68 Million Opening Weekend at Box Office
Written by SOURCE on January 18, 2020
According to early projections, Bad Boys For Life is doing better than, well, even earlier projections thanks to its $23.5 million at the North American box office through the first full day of its extended four-day opening weekend. This puts Will Smith and Martin Lawrence‘s latest entry in the action-comedy series on a pace for a $66-68 million opening, and also probably reassures Sony that it’s a good idea to make a fourth movie in the franchise without another 17-year gap in-between.
According to Deadline, Bad Boys For Life‘s very strong Martin Luther King Jr. weekend showing will make it the second highest grossing film ever over this particular holiday stretch, sandwiching it between first place American Sniper ($107.2 million in 2014) and Ride Along ($48.6 million, also in 2014).
In terms of where it stands against the past two offerings from its own series, the projected $66-68 million weekend will represent a noticeable improvement over 2003’s Bad Boys II, which nabbed $46.5 million in its first few days. It will also make the franchise more money than the entire domestic gross of 1995’s series-opening Bad Boys, which finished its theatrical run with $65.8 million.
In case you’re wondering, Bad Boys For Life cost an estimated $90 million to make, not including its marketing budget. Looks like a good investment from where we’re standing.
Unfortunately if there are winners, there’s also got to be losers. And at the moment it doesn’t look like Dolittle, Robert Downey Jr.’s first non-Iron Man role in more than five years, will make a whole lot of money back for Universal. The grim result had been forecasted, but will still be a disappointment for a big budget adventure movie with a flashy star atop the marquee.
Dolittle brought in just $6.3 million in domestic receipts on Friday, which puts it on track for $31 million. Pit that against its reported $175-200 million pre-marketing budget and it’s not exactly looking like an Avengers-esque return.
If its any consolation to Universal, who also just put out the critically-maligned box-office bomb Cats, Sam Mendes’ 1917 is performing well with both critics and audiences. In addition to pulling in 10 Oscar nominations less than a week ago, the WWI epic brought in $6.2 million on Friday, which puts it on pace for a projected $26.6 million this weekend. Note that this is its second weekend of wide release. At this point, it’s looking like it’ll make its money back and then some.
