‘Bad Boys for Life’ Leads Box Office for Third Straight Weekend

Jeremy Fuster
·2 min read

As expected, the box office is slow on this Super Bowl weekend, as Sony’s “Bad Boys for Life” easily takes its third No. 1 on the box office charts with just $17.3 million, according to industry estimates.

With that result, the Will Smith/Martin Lawrence threequel will get close to the $150 million domestic mark with $147.7 million grossed. It will also pass the unadjusted domestic total of “Bad Boys II,” which grossed $138.6 million in 2003 ($192.5 million after inflation adjustment).

Holdovers also make up the rest of the top 5, as newcomers “The Rhythm Section” and “Gretel and Hansel” failed to gain much traction with audiences. “Gretel and Hansel” was the higher grosser with an estimated $5.7 million from 3,007 screens. That opening puts it just outside the top 5 with “Jumanji: The Next Level” and “The Gentlemen” just ahead of it as both holdovers are also estimated to gross between $5.7 and $6 million.

While this opening for the United Artists/Orion release is meeting tracker expectations and will also put it on course to turn a profit — “Gretel and Hansel” had a $5 million production budget before marketing — reception has been tepid. Audiences gave the film a C- on CinemaScore, and critics haven’t been much better with a 56% Rotten Tomatoes score.

But Paramount’s “The Rhythm Section” is doing even worse, continuing the studio’s terrible 2019 with an opening of just $3 million against a reported $50 million budget. The revenge thriller produced by Eon — the studio behind the Bond films — was moved to this weekend after production delays. But regardless of release, critics and audiences aren’t enjoying it, giving it a C+ on CinemaScore and 30% on Rotten Tomatoes. Paramount will now have to turn to “Sonic the Hedgehog” in two weeks to try to end their months-long streak of box office flops that also includes “Gemini Man” and “Terminator: Dark Fate.”

More to come…

Read original story ‘Bad Boys for Life’ Leads Box Office for Third Straight Weekend At TheWrap