Bad Boys Shoot to #1 at the Box Office, Dolittle Does Little

After a 17-year absence, Mike & Marcus came roaring back at #1 with Sony’s Bad Boys for Life performing above expectations with a $59.1 million opening weekend and a projected $68.1 million 4-day through MLK Day weekend, making it the second-highest opening ever for the holiday! The threequel, which marks the promising Hollywood debut of Belgian filmmaking duo Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, took $38.6 million internationally for a weekend cume of $106.7 million worldwide.

The last film in the series, Bad Boys II, opened in July of 2003 with $46.5 million. However, that film cost $130 million (unadjusted), had Michael Bay behind the camera and a prime summer slot. Bad Boys for Life carries a much lighter price tag of $90 million, and proved a perfect action programmer for January. It also showed that Will Smith (whose Gemini Man hit the skids last fall) and Martin Lawrence (who hasn’t been in a major film since 2011) are still big draws. The film also earned a respectable 76% on Rotten Tomatoes, so this is a big win all around for Sony. Bring on Bad Boys 4!

It was a different story for Universal PIctures’ family film Dolittle (delayed from last summer by costly reshoots), which opened at #2 with a disappointing $22.5 million domestically over the weekend and projected $30 million over the 4-day. Internationally it made $27.3 million for a $57.3 million worldwide weekend take. That’s a huge letdown for Robert Downey Jr.’s first big post-Avengers: Endgame role, and coupled with an 18% critical consensus as well as a $175-$200 million price tag this looks like the first true fiasco of 2020. The movie was directed by Stephen Gaghan (Syriana), with reshoots overseen by Jonathan Liebesman (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles).

However, Universal’s 1917 saved the day at #3 with a terrific $22.1 million take for its second week in wide release. The Best Picture Oscar front-runner, which slipped from #1 to #3, was directed by Sam Mendes and has taken in $143.5 million worldwide so far.

Sony’s Jumanji: The Next Level fell one spot to #4 but came out ahead of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. The Dwayne Johnson-led sequel brought in $9.5 million for a domestic take of $270.4 million and a worldwide net of $711.7 million, all but assuring that there will be another entry in the franchise.

Meanwhile Lucasfilm’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker fell from #2 to #5 with $8.3 million for a $492 million domestic haul and a worldwide cume of $1.028 billion.