Sony/Columbia’s “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” has overcome fears that it could be consumed by the slump that the box office has been in for all of May, earning $21.6 million from 3,885 locations as it plots a course for a $53 million opening weekend.
While down from the $62 million 3-day opening of “Bad Boys For Life” in January 2020, exhibitors and rival distributors were split on whether this fourth installment of the buddy cop action series would be able to meet initial projections of a $45-50 million opening. Some exhibitors told TheWrap they were concerned about weaker presales, while some rival studio sources believed the film would shrug that off with solid walk-up traffic.
The strong initial ticket sales for “Ride or Die” trailed those for the previous installment in the franchise, “Bad Boys for Life,” which collected $62.5 million over its first three days in 2020, or about $76 million after accounting for inflation. “Bad Boys for Life” benefited from pent-up demand, coming out 17 years after “Bad Boys II.” The franchise started in 1995.
Sony also had the No. 2 film of the weekend, “The Garfield Movie,” which collected an estimated $10.3 million, for a three-week domestic total of nearly $70 million.
Bad Boys for Life drew 58% under 35, with 42% Black moviegoers, 30% Caucasian, 18% Hispanic and Latino and 10% Asian American/other. The fourthquel, also produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, and directed by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, showed 50% under 35 with 44% Black, 26% Hispanic and Latino, 18% Caucasian and 12% Asian American/other buying tickets. Those buying their tickets day of were 72% which tells you how much walk-up business this had, and which couldn’t be observed in some tracking (though some had a sense would occur).
RelishMix noticed an upbeat word of mouth out there with fans forgiving Will Smith post Oscar slap saying, “I’m glad Will Smith is back. His action movies never disappoint,” and, “Martin Lawrence is so funny and makes me laugh so hard like from deep, deep down inside funny.” Chatter relishes the balance between the action and comedic elements spotlighted in the trailer, with some feeling this is an improvement on the previous 2020 entry Bad Boys for Life, saying, “Last one was mid, but this one already looks and feels better like a Bad Boys movie”. Reports PostTrak, 35% of those who bought tickets came because of either Smith or Lawrence while 38% came because of the cast alone. Forty-two percent told exit polls that they came out last night because the fourthquel looked fun and entertaining.
As a genre, action adventure films can be packed with social star-power — especially The Fast Franchise. For Bad Boys 4, the super social media universe averages with cast are running above norms by 15% at 693.7M across TikTok, Facebook, X, YouTube and Instagram combined which include Smith’s social machine which is throttling videos with over 150M views.
