‘Madame Web’ fails to spin a box office win against ‘Bob Marley’

Hello! Welcome to The Box Office Report for the weekend of Feb. 16-18, 2024.

1. Bob Marley: One Love

Weekend gross: $27.7M
Total domestic gross: $45.6M
Last weekend: New release
Percent drop: NA

Nothing says “let’s go to the movies” like Valentine’s Day … and Presidents’ Day? Get ready for some weird box office math in this edition of The Box Office Report, since the one-two punch of those holidays left us with a weekend where studios are reporting three-day, four-day and six-day grosses.

The winner in all this confusion? Bob Marley: One Love.

The Bob Marley biopic easily topped Madame Web to take the No. 1 spot this weekend. The film grossed an estimated $27.7 million across Friday, Saturday and Sunday, giving One Love a total of $45.6 million since its debut on Wednesday.

For musical biopics, One Love’s three-day weekend number (diluted by opening a few days beforehand) is pretty in line with the opening weekends of films like Rocketman ($25.7 million) and Elvis ($31.2 million) while trailing behind Bohemian Rhapsody ($51.1 million).

2. Madame Web

Weekend gross: $15.2M
Total domestic gross: $23.4M
Last weekend: New release
Percent drop: NA

Commentary Track’s Matt Goldberg broke down how and why Sony keeps making these off-brand Spider-Man movies like Madame Web (“a feature-length post-credits scene teasing a movie that will never happen because this one flopped”), and it’s clear that moviegoers aren’t interested in these films anymore.

With the exception of the critically acclaimed animated Spider-Verse films, Sony’s Spider-Man spinoffs aren’t on a great track right now. Even if we give Madame Web the benefit of the doubt for having a diluted three-day opening weekend number, its $15.2 million weekend is even worse than the $39 million that Morbius opened with in 2022.

While Marvel Studios knows that it can bounce back from a bad opening weekend with films like Deadpool & Wolverine coming up, what does Sony have when it comes to their Spider-Man movies? Kraven the Hunter isn’t going to set the box office on fire this August.