Box Office: ‘Bob Marley: One Love’ Easily Beats ‘Madame Web’ Over Valentine’s Day

Paramount’s “Bob Marley: One Love” stirred things up at the Valentine’s Day box office. The biopic about the reggae legend is outpacing estimates after opening to $14 million domestically. It added $4.9 million to its haul from 10 overseas markets, including the U.K., France and Spain. Its global gross stands at $19.4 million.

Those domestic numbers easily overshadow the opening of Sony’s “Madame Web,” the latest entry in the studio’s hit-and-miss, cinematic Spider-verse (for every “Venom,” there’s a “Morbius”!). The comic book adaptation generated a little over $6 million domestically.

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“Bob Marley: One Love” was initially projected to collect $30 million to $35 million stateside between Wednesday and President’s Day on Monday. But unless the grosses are front-loaded, it could exceed those estimates. “Madame Web” is expected to generate $26 million during the same six-day period.

Neither film was cheap. “Bob Marley” cost $70 million and “Madame Web” carries an $80 million budget — and those figures don’t includes the tens of millions more that is needed to market and distribute the films.

“Madame Web” was directed by S.J. Clarkson (“Anatomy of a Scandal”) and stars Dakota Johnson as Cassie Webb, a paramedic with an evocative surname and clairvoyant abilities. Sydney Sweeney, Tahar Rahim and Emma Roberts pop up in an ensemble that may not be too thrilled to have this credit on their resumes. That’s because critics hated the movie, with reviewers finding fresh and innovative ways to decry its laden dialogue and tired plot. It currently has a deplorable 15% “rotten” ranking on Rotten Tomatoes.

Critics weren’t too enthused about “Bob Marley.” Even as reviewers praised Kingsley Ben-Adir’s lead performance as the musician, they complained that the film is overly conventional. Audiences were much kinder, giving the film an A CinemaScore (“Madame Web” earned a C+). Reinaldo Marcus Green (“King Richard”) directs a cast that also includes Lashana Lynch as Rita Marley and James Norton as Chris Blackwell, the founder of Island Records, which released Marley’s music.

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