Life is good for Bad Boys for Life stars Will Smith and Martin Lawrence. It wasn't always clear if fans would turn up for the sequel to 1995's Bad Boys and 2003's Bad Boys II. After all, it's been a while. But time has made ticket-buying hearts grow fonder. Bad Boys 3 just had the franchise's best opening. It's also Sony's biggest R-rated debut ever. It's also enjoying the second-best MLK weekend box office opening to date, after American Sniper.
We can talk more about that, and what happened to Dolittle and the other movies of mid-January 2020, after the full top 10 domestic box office chart estimates:
| Movie Title | Weekend Amount | Total Amount | Chart Position Last Week | Number of Screens |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bad Boys for Life* | 68400000 | 68400000 | 0 | 3775 |
| Dolittle* | 30600000 | 30600000 | 0 | 4155 |
| 1917 | 27200000 | 81900000 | 1 | 3612 |
| Jumanji: The Next Level | 12850000 | 273800000 | 3 | 3323 |
| Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker | 10300000 | 493900000 | 2 | 3058 |
| Just Mercy | 7270000 | 20900000 | 5 | 2457 |
| Little Women | 6400000 | 84900000 | 6 | 2503 |
| Knives Out | 5560000 | 147200000 | 9 | 1667 |
| Like A Boss | 5300000 | 18400000 | 4 | 3081 |
| Frozen II | 4700000 | 465900000 | 8 | 2080 |
Worth noting: Underwater didn't even crack the top 10 after its debut last week. #Sad.
As Deadline noted, Bad Boys for Life's $68 million four-day domestic opening is 70% more than the $40 million projection the movie was seeing just last week. Bad Boys 3 is also projected to top $100 million worldwide this weekend. Making close $70 million just in North America across the four-day holiday is pretty fantastic. It's not quite American Sniper's $107.2 million four-day MLK weekend, but it's better than Ride Along's $48.6 million. Also, as Exhibitor Relations Co. mentioned, that $68M extended MLK holiday opening marks Sony's largest debut for an R-rated movie.
On Friday, Bad Boys for Life already set a record for the biggest opening day in January, with its $23.5 million breaking the record of $17.16 million, per The Numbers. Bad Boys 3 also had the best opening of the franchise -- topping Bad Boys' $15,523,358 in April 1995 and Bad Boys II's $46,522,560 in July 2003 -- although ticket prices have certainly changed since then, and Bad Boys 3 had the benefit of an extra holiday date. (As usual, these box office estimates may be adjusted up or down slightly later in the week when the full ticket sales are counted.)
Bad Boys for Life has also gotten strong reviews and raves from fans, including an A CinemaScore. So, no shock that Bad Boys 4 is already in the works.
Things aren't so great for Dolittle's opening, although most of that is because it cost so darn much to make. While Bad Boys for Life was reportedly made on a $90 million production budget, Robert Downey Jr.'s Dolittle was said to cost $175 million before marketing. It was apparently a very tough birth behind-the-scenes. If it were a cheaper movie, that $30 million across four days would be fine. Now it's going to be tough for the movie to break even without a ton of help overseas. Dolittle's terrible reviews couldn't have helped its case, and while user scores have been higher, a CinemaScore of B isn't a very strong endorsement.
1917 looks like the Oscars frontrunner for Best Picture, thanks to the awards it's picking up along the way. That will certainly continue to help its box office. Jumanji: The Next Level continues to quietly pick up more money. Will it manage to hit $1 billion? Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle came so close but I don't know if The Next Level will get that close. Either way, it's another big win.
One surprise, I suppose, this week is Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. It left a significant number of theaters this weekend, and now plays on fewer screens than the Jumanji sequel. Rise of Skywalker ended up going from second place to 1917 last weekend to 5th place this weekend. The Star Wars movie already made more than $1 billion worldwide, but still. For Star Wars? This isn't good.
The rest of the list is smaller prestige films -- Just Mercy, which got an A+ CinemaScore; Little Women, which continues to impress; Knives Out, earning that praise. Quentin Tarantino is right, there was something of a war for movies in 2019 and these non-blockbusters are still fighting the good fight here in early 2020.
The rest of January looks pretty quiet before the storm of major movies begins in February. Keep up with everything heading to the big screen this year with our 2020 movie release date schedule.
