Bad Boys for Life dominated the box-office beyond forecasts with a $73.4 million opening over the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend.
The third iteration of the Will Smith-Martin Lawrence action comedy franchise should finish the Friday-Monday as Sony Pictures’ biggest R-rated opening ever.
It is the industry’s second highest opening of all-time for the month of January, as well as Lawrence’s biggest opening.
“Bad Boys for Life,” produced by Smith, Jerry Bruckheimer and Doug Belgrad, took in $23.5 million on Friday, $21.6 million on Saturday, $17.1 million on Sunday and a projected $11.3 million on Monday.
The results nearly doubled the studio’s pre-release projection of $38 million.
“Bad Boys for Life” also dominated rivals, taking in more than the combined total of the next three films — Universal’s launch of family adventure “Dolittle” with $29.5 million, the studio’s second weekend of awards contender “1917” with $26.8 million and Sony’s sixth frame of “Jumanji: The Next Level” with $12.8 million.
“Despite all the gloom and doom and premature pronouncements about the dismal prospects for a bright 2020 in movie theaters, ‘Bad Boys For Life’ set new records for the month of January and in the process boosted the early year to date advantage over last year to 12% and hopefully will silence for now the naysayers who are being literally shortsighted in their assessment of what they predict to be a rough road ahead at the multiplex,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst with Comscore.