'The Beekeeper' Remains Hollywood's 2024 Box Office Champion
Barring a severe underperformance this weekend, Dune Part Two will end its first global opening weekend as the year’s top-earning Hollywood flick. No, that’s not counting the handful of big Chinese tentpoles that debuted amid a conventionally crowed Lunar New Year frame, films like Bonnie Bears: Time Twist ($256 million), Article 20 ($289 million), Pegasus ($433 million) and Yolo ($466 million), but I digress. The presumed over/under $170 million global launch for Warner Bros. Discovery/Legendary’s sci-fi sequel will mark the end to the reign of our current, and frankly unexpected current champion. Until Dune Part Two passes it globally, the year’s top-grossing Hollywood film is... Jason Statham’s The Beekeeper.
Yes, it’s unfortunate that the pickings have been so slim (and the earnings for most theatrical offerings so low) that just one 2024 release has even earned $150 million worldwide. The only other newbies to cross $100 million global are Paramount’s Bob Marley: One Love ($125 million-and-counting) and Mean Girls (which, ironically, was initially greenlit for Paramount+). Even if you count Oscar season expansions, Searchlight’s Poor Things – which debuted with a scorching $661,230 in nine theaters on December 8 -- crossing $100 million worldwide is a massive win by the current Covid-era award season standards.
Hell, even Apple’s wannabe franchise-starter Argylle (distributed theatrically by Universal) could have taken the title by default had it earned a global cume even on par with Killers of the Flower Moon ($157 million) instead of its miserable $87 million total. While One Love is thus far the year’s top domestic earner with $74 million, and it may remain so at least through next week unless Dune 2 overperforms over the weekend, the top global earner is an R-rated, star-driven, original $35 million action flick. Credit the movie, credit its star and credit strong marketing and promotional efforts from Amazon MGM, which has been on a minor run of late in terms of old-school “movie movies” that are playing well and sticking around in theaters.
Along with The Beekeeper, they pushed the George Clooney-directed The Boys in the Boat to $52 million domestic from a $5.6 million Christmas Day opening. The film, which earned mixed reviews and zero Oscar nominations, filled a void in a crowded holiday season. If Migration and Wonka were kids’ films that adults could enjoy, then Boys on the Boat (so wholesome that it made A Man Called Otto look like a grimdark, deconstructionist societal critique) was an adult-skewing movie that kids might enjoy. Along with decent results for Cord Jefferson’s American Fiction ($20 million and counting) and Saltburn ($11.4 million domestic), the tech giant is making itself seen on the theatrical landscape.
A $40 million Olympic rowing drama earning $55 million worldwide wouldn’t be enough if we were banking strictly on theatrical. Apple and Amazon use theatrical releases as a promotional push for a streaming launch. We have known for years that theatrical films perform better on streaming platforms than streaming originals. Giving full-court theatrical releases to Napoleon or Air is about making them a bigger deal and at least trying to earn back some money for an already-produced picture. Since the film’s production budget is already accounted for, going theatrical only means extra cash for P&A.
Amazon and Apple are allegedly investing $1 billion per year in theatrical releases. Amazon does its own marketing and distribution, while Apple hires legacy studios like Paramount, Sony and Universal. Moreover, Apple is mostly “only” releasing their mega-budget tentpoles (like Argylle) or prestige flicks (like Napoleon) into theaters. Amazon is releasing lower-budget programmers like (whether always intended for theatrical via Orion or MGM or not) Bottoms and Boys in the Boat alongside higher-budget but non-franchise flicks like Ben Affleck’s Air. Yes, Amazon is releasing the upcoming Dwayne Johnson-led Christmas action comedy Red One into multiplexes this November. Apple may eventually start releasing their Family Plan or Ghosted-type programmers, too. That would be a win/win.
That offers a future, prophesized in 2016 with the Oscar-winning (and $79 million-grossing) Sundance pick-up Manchester by the Sea, where an Amazon theatrical has a massive “raising awareness” advantage. Think having print ads splattered across the Internet via the Amazon-specific ecosystem. Think trailers and TV spots offered on Amazon’s Freevee and amid the content accessed via Prime Video’s ad-specific tiers. That includes their Thursday night NFL football game, which could become valuable pre-release marketing real estate comparable to studios shelling out “back in the day” to plug their new release during Grey’s Anatomy, American Idol or Friends episodes. Once again, amid the streaming era, meet the new boss, the same as the old boss.
Meanwhile, Amazon uses theatrical to raise awareness and interest in non-IP, non-franchise titles or comparatively more challenging sales. An Eddie Murphy-starring, family-friendly holiday comedy (Candy Cane Lane) or a Jake Gyllenhaal-starring Roadhouse remake can make the Prime Video pitch just by its thumbnail on the platform’s front page. If you’re wondering why the Doug Liman-directed WWE/UFC-friendly fisticuffs dramedy is still going straight to streaming...
It’s a deeply, almost bitterly ironic development considering that a shift to streaming among general audiences was a big reason why non-branded, non-franchise studio programmers became a commercially endangered species in the mid-2010s. Streaming platforms kneecapped the non-franchise theatrical movie while initially selling itself as a safe place for adult-skewing, star-driven, non-franchise fare as Hollywood went all-in chasing the singular success of The Avengers.
However, after years of theatrical being written off as a dead man walking amid Wall Street pressuring the entire industry to copy the Netflix model, the theatrical release is seen as a vital variable for making the non-franchise, non-IP, adult-skewing and/or star-driven streaming movies more valuable. Prime Video doesn’t need the awareness and comparative prestige created by a theatrical release for an IP hit or a franchise flick, but it does for an old-school movie-movie.
The Beekeeper marks Statham’s top-earning solo star vehicle outside of The Meg and Meg 2: The Trench, both domestically (Transporter 2 with $43 million in 2005) and globally (Mechanic Resurrection with $126 million in 2016). Heck, Beekeeper’s $64 million domestic cume is close to the inflation-adjusted ($70 million) total of that second Transporter flick.
Mechanic: Resurrection, his first solo theatrical actioner since the $52 million-grossing Homefront in late 2013, earned $126 million worldwide (including $49 million in China) in August 2016. Wrath of Man, which was his first such flick since the Mechanic sequel, earned $27 million domestically (high by early-2010s solo Statham standards) and $106 million globally in May of 2021 despite Covid-related variables. With all due respect to Operation Fortune, The Beekeeper (with just $16 million in China) has shattered the box office ceiling for a non-IP, R-rated Jason Statham actioner.
Some of that is due to the movie itself, namely a gonzo energy along with a relatable premise (watch Statham unleash hell on tech bros who swindle senior citizens out of their life savings) and a little political dog-whistling (spoilers, but the movie dabbles in stereotypes related to Hillary Clinton and Hunter Biden) as a treat. It’s just more *fun* than the by-the-numbers Mechanic sequel or the unapologetically mean and vicious (not necessarily a criticism) armored car heist thriller. It’s an R-rated actioner with the moral compass of a gee-whiz PG-rated family flick.
I wrote back in May of 2015, before Wild Card (a remake of the 1986 Burt Reynolds-starring Heat) debuted on VOD, that Statham’s high-profile supporting turns in Spy and Furious 7 would increase demand for Statham’s meat-and-potatoes actioners. I can at least claim to have called that shot.
Credit high-profile blockbuster turns in The Fast Saga ($4.2 billion over the four Statham-featuring films between 2015 and 2023), the Meg duo ($530 million in 2018 and $397 million in 2023) and Spy ($235 million in 2015). Credit generational nostalgia for when the likes of Crank and War were instrumental in keeping the R-rated actioner alive in a PG-13 world. Credit a growing renewed appreciation for real-world action movies. Credit The Beekeeper having a sharper crowdpleasing sting. Just over 21 years since The Transporter, Statham has gone from one of the last action heroes standing to one of the few butts-in-seat movie stars left.
ncG1vNJzZmirk6TBtbnEp5uepKOku2%2B%2F1JuqrZmToHuku8xop2ign6x6q63SqKVmq6SWwamtzKxkraCVYq%2BmscqenKmdog%3D%3D