‘Bob Marley: One Love’ Scores Box Office Record For Biggest Opening Day Ever In Jamaica
Paramount Pictures and Tuff Gong’s Bob Marley: One Love broke records following its first day in theatres around the globe despite failing to impress international film critics.
The movie, which stars Kingsley Ben-Adir and Lashana Lynch as Bob and Rita Marley, is No. 1 in Jamaica with an 89% share and a record-breaking US$100,000 in receipts, making it the island’s biggest opening day ever for a film, according to Paramount.
The film is also the biggest midweek opener ever for Valentine’s Day in the United States, with $14 million recorded for the country on its first day of release. “The honor previously belonged to 2012’s The Vow ($11.5 million),” The Hollywood Reporter noted.
The biopic more than doubled the receipts of its competitor, Sony’s Madame Web, which grossed $6 million at the US box office.
It is also the “biggest opening day” for a music biopic ever in the UK, grossing 2.3 million in the country.
Internationally, the opening day receipts totaled $5.4 million, including $1.3 million in France, $615k in Australia, $185k in Spain, $175k in New Zealand, $155k in Sweden, $130k in Belgium, and $90k in Norway.
Bob Marley: One Love, which reportedly cost $70 million (not including promo) to make, will open in 26 other countries on Thursday and Friday.
During the premiere in Jamaica on January 23, Paramount Pictures’ CEO, Brian Robbins, revealed that the film employed over 2,000 Jamaicans, most as extras, but also 400 in cast and crew roles.
The film opened everywhere in North America and Jamaica on Wednesday to take advantage of sweethearts going to the movies on Valentine’s Day.
In the US, it opened in the lead-up to the long Presidents Day weekend, with the official holiday falling on Monday. “The combo of the two holidays means that [the film] will report six-day openings. Early returns show One Love beating Madame Web to the tune of $30 million or more,” THR suggested.
Reception
According to Rotten Tomatoes, a review-aggregation website for film and television, Bob Marley: One Love currently has 94% audience approval, more than film critics who have it at 44%.
The critics’ consensus is that “Kingsley Ben-Adir does an admirable job in the central role, but Bob Marley: One Love is ultimately a standard biopic that doesn’t do justice to its brilliant subject.”
The Guardian, for example, criticized the Marley family-approved project for skirting some big questions about the musician. Noting that the film appeared “unrelaxed and sanctified”, the paper noted that “biopics don’t get more authorised or anaesthetised than this ploddingly solemn account of reggae legend Bob Marley.”
“A great, or good, movie could have been made about Marley’s sensational career, his musical genius, inspirational asceticism (if not quite humility) and poignant sacrificial destiny as someone who drove himself unsparingly through illness to create a free concert for peace and unity in Jamaica in 1978,” the publication added. “This is a vacuum-sealed package of fan-orthodoxy that never takes off. The euphoria and uplift aren’t there.”
They also took issue with the fact that the film “just about acknowledges Bob’s extramarital indiscretions and paternities, although this is something sternly mentioned in order to be swept away as if entirely irrelevant.”
Audiences, however, were more impressed with the film, which was directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green.
“Excellent movie!! Great acting, great message! And quite artfully done. Not just a documentary. They really dug into the emotion and psychology and relationships behind what actually happens. Amazing work! and obviously and amazing soundtrack!,” one fan said.
Added another: “I liked everything about it. I partied and cried throughout the experience. It deserves an Academy Award.”
“The movie did an amazing job capturing Bob Marleys legacy. The acting was much better than the reviews said! I recommend!”