Bob Marley: One Love premiered at the Carib 5 in Kingston, Jamaica on January 23, 2024, and was released in the United States by Paramount Pictures on February 14, 2024. It received mixed reviews from critics and grossed $180 million worldwide.
Plot
In 1976, amidst armed political conflict that is affecting daily life in Jamaica, Bob Marley announces he will perform at a concert, Smile Jamaica, promoting peace amongst the warring factions. While preparing for the concert, Marley, his wife Rita, and several other members of his band are shot by assailants. Rita and Marley are hospitalized, but survive and recover from their injuries in time for the concert. After performing, Marley, saddened that his own countrymen would try to kill him and his wife, shows the crowd his bullet wounds before walking off stage. He tells Rita to take their children to Delaware in the United States and stay with his mom, as he and the rest of his band venture to London to record their next two albums.
After struggling to come up with a new album concept, Marley asks Rita to rejoin him and the band in England, and taking inspiration from the soundtrack of the film Exodus and their own situation, he and the band begin recording what would become their album of the same name, in conjunction with a second album released in 1978. The album becomes a hit and helps further popularize reggae music and the Rastafari movement around the world. When the recording company schedules a tour in Europe, Marley also aims for stops throughout Africa to inspire the people there. This leads to friction with Rita as she and Marley argue about his responsibilities and both his and Rita's infidelities, in addition to having given up on promoting peace back in Jamaica. Marley also gets into an altercation with manager Don Taylor over a financial dispute.
After a toenail infection caused by being hit by a football raises concern from Rita and his record producer Chris Blackwell, Marley is later diagnosed with a rare skin cancer. Blackwell confronts Marley about treatment choices, reluctantly dismissed by a firm Marley. Faced with his own mortality, Marley reconciles with Rita and Taylor and finally decides to return to Jamaica in 1978, where he is welcomed back by a crowd at the airport. Back home, the gunman who had shot him and the others arrives and begs for forgiveness, to which Marley states he "keeps no vengeance". After Marley debuts a song to Rita and the children about reconciliation, she finally deems him ready to perform a peace concert. The film ends as Marley and his band gear up to perform again for the Jamaican crowd with the song "One Love".
A pre-credits montage shows clips of the real Marley and his band during the One Love Peace Concert, which sees them joined on-stage by the heads of both of Jamaica's political parties, also revealing that Marley and his band were able to perform in Zimbabwe to celebrate the nation's independence before he died of his cancer in 1981 at the age of 36.
Bob Marley: One Love held its world premiere in Marley's hometown of Kingston, Jamaica, on January 23, 2024.[23]
It was released theatrically in the United States on February 14, 2024.[24] It was originally scheduled to be released on January 12, 2024.[14] It was released in the United Kingdom on February 14, 2024.[1]
Home media
It premiered on Paramount+ and MGM+ in the US and Canada on April 12, 2024, with a linear streaming on the same day.
Bob Marley: One Love grossed $96.9 million in the United States and Canada, and $83.9 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $180.8 million.[5]
In the United States and Canada, One Love was released alongside Madame Web, and was initially projected to gross $30–35 million from 3,536 theaters over its six-day opening frame.[4] The film made $14 million on its first day, a Valentine's Day mid-week record (surpassing The Vow's $11.5 million in 2012), and $3.8 million on its second.[25][26] After making $7.5 million on Friday, six-day estimates were raised to $46 million. It went on to debut to $51 million over its first six days (including $27.7 million in its opening weekend), finishing first at the box office and marking one of the best openings for a music biopic.[27] In its second weekend the film made $13.5 million (a drop of 53%), remaining in first.[28] It made $7.4 million in its third weekend, finishing second behind newcomer Dune: Part Two.[29]
In Jamaica, the film's opening day gross of $100,000 and an 89% market share set a record for the biggest box office opening of all-time in the country.[30][31][32]
Critical response
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 45% of 197 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5.4/10. The website's consensus reads: "Kingsley Ben-Adir does an admirable job in the central role, but Bob Marley: One Love is ultimately a standard biopic that doesn't do justice to its brilliant subject."[33]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 43 out of 100, based on 36 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.[34] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale, while those polled at PostTrak gave it a 91% positive score, with 80% saying they would definitely recommend the film.[25][27]
Lovia Gyarkye of The Hollywood Reporter wrote: "[Ben-Adir] wholly conjures Marley's charisma while also teasing the musician's sense of isolation, stemming from a childhood marked by abandonment. His compelling performance enlivens a film that otherwise feels like it's perpetually struggling to take off."[35]Javier Ocaña of El País called the film "a serviceable biopic that is saved by its soundtrack"[36] while Expresso thought it "showed the man beyond the myth".[37]
Brian Lowry of CNN called the film "a dutiful addition to a recent wave of such biographies (see Rocketman and Bohemian Rhapsody), but a largely uninspired one."[38]The Age's Jake Wilson gave it 1.5/5 stars, calling it a "routine biopic" and writing, "considering this is unlikely to be the last attempt to dramatise Marley's life story, next time it wouldn't hurt if a Jamaican filmmaker had a go."[39]The Atlantic's Hannah Giorgis wrote, "One Love might offer a less daunting entry point than Marley, which can feel intimidating in its scope. But his music and ideas—and all the people who helped usher them into this fractured world—deserve better."[40]
