‘Bad Boys For Life’ To Seize $40M+ Over MLK Holiday – Box Office Forecast
Click here to read the full article.
Sony’s long-awaited Will Smith and Martin Lawrence re-team Bad Boys for Life arrived on tracking Thursday with a $40 million-$45 million four-day opening projection. Among action comedies launched over the holiday, that forecast is around where Ride Along ($48.6M) and Ride Along 2 ($41M) opened. The 2014 Ride Along, starring Kevin Hart and Ice Cube, was the record opening over MLK until Clint Eastwood’s wide break of American Sniper rose the benchmark to a lofty height with $107.2M in January 2015.
Bad Boys for Life cost a reported $90M before P&A. Sony believes the four-day debut on January 17-20 is more in line with $38M. In the pic, Bad Boys Mike Lowrey (Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Lawrence) are back together for one last ride.
More from Deadline
'Cats' Star James Corden Hasn't Seen The Film - But He Heard "It's Terrible"
How 'Cats' Became A Calamity At The Box Office With $6.5M Opening
The first movie launched in 1995 just as Smith’s and Lawrence’s big-screen careers were warming up and made $141.4M worldwide. The sequel, Bad Boys II, made eight years later, grossed $273.3M WW bringing the franchise’s total to $414.7M. The threequel is directed by Adil & Bilall, with a story by Peter Craig and Joe Carnahan, and screenplay by Chris Bremner, Craig and Carnahan. Jerry Bruckheimer, Smith and Doug Belgrad produced. EPs are Chad Oman, Barry Waldman, Mike Stenson and James Lassiter.
Universal also has the very expensive $175M reboot Dolittle, starring Robert Downey Jr. as the doctor who can talk to animals, over the MLK holiday weekend. Tracking spots that pic’s opening at $25M-$30M over the four-day stretch. Directed and written by Traffic Oscar winner Stephen Gaghan, Dolittle underwent 21 days of reshoots according to reports last spring, with director Jonathan Liebesman and Lego Batman helmer Chris McKay overseeing fresh rewrites. Dolittle, which features an-all star cast including Tom Holland, Antonio Banderas, Rami Malek, Emma Thompson, John Cena, Selena Gomez among others, reps Gaghan’s entry in the VFX comedy genre space. Dolittle‘s last release date on the schedule before reshoots was April 12 last year.
Best of Deadline
Stan Lee's Legacy: Ranking The Hollywood Heroes Co-Created By The Marvel Comics Icon
Disney-Fox Deal: How It Ranks Among Biggest All-Time Media Mergers
Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
