Locals weren’t swayed by the heavy criticisms of the Bob Marley: One Love biopic as they flocked to the theatres on opening day, a turnout which had marketing manager of Palace Amusement Melanie Graham describing the movie as doing “exceedingly well” for the first time since the outbreak of COVID-19.

Graham has confirmed that at least two of the four movie houses run by Palace Amusement were sold out on Wednesday — the flagship Carib 5 in Cross Roads, Kingston and Palace Cineplex, also in Kingston — and only a few empty chairs were left at Sunshine Palace in Portmore, St Catherine, and Multiplex in Montego Bay.

The movie was released on Wednesday, February 14, a day globally recognised as Valentine’s Day. But in Jamaica, it was also a holiday — Ash Wednesday — the first day of Lent starting approximately six weeks of fasting and penance.

“It’s the largest opening day that we’ve had. The fact that the two events were recognised on the same day may have had some impact on the turnout, but I don’t presume it would be much because it’s the biggest holiday opening and the biggest Valentine’s Day opening that we’ve had,” Graham told the Jamaica Observer.

Produced by Paramount Pictures, Bob Marley: One Love tells the story of how the reggae icon overcame adversity and the journey behind his revolutionary music. Across the four theatres, Graham said a total of 7,547 patrons watched the movie on opening day. That’s double the 3,860 patrons the 102-year-old company welcomed for the opening day of the blockbuster hit movie Black Panther in 2018.

In anticipation of a large turnout, Palace reserved three auditoriums at its Carib 5, Sunshine Palace and Multiplex movie houses, and two auditoriums at Cineplex in Liguanea, Kingston. All movie houses had three showings.

“We had no estimates of what we wanted the numbers to be going into opening day, we were only hoping for it to be the largest. As it relates to the value of tickets sold, we would have to go through the numbers because some were sold at adult prices while others were kid’s prices,” Graham said.

The film, which Paramount’s CEO said employed over 2,000 Jamaicans for cast and production, was also released Wednesday in most countries, and estimates coming out of the United States are that the film raked in US$14 million on opening night, while it added US$4.9 million to its haul from 10 overseas markets, including the UK, France and Spain.

Its global gross stands at US$19.4 million and it’s expected to exceed the performance of Sony’s Madame Web, the latest entry in the studio’s hit-and-miss, cinematic Spider-verse. The comic book adaptation generated a little over US$6 million in the United States.

Bob Marley: One Love was initially projected to earn US$30 million to US$35 million stateside between Wednesday and President’s Day on Monday, but is expected to shatter those estimates. The film cost about US$70 million to film.

One Love will debut on February 22 in Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Hungary, Italy, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Yemen. It will be released on February 23 in Indonesia; March 13 in the Philippines; March 14 in Hong Kong, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand; March 15 in Taiwan and Vietnam; and May 10 in Japan.

As for how long the movie will continue to show in Jamaica: “For as long as patrons want to view it, we are putting no limits on it. In fact, we had to push back the showing of Madame Web to allow full support for One Love. We must say a big thank you to everyone who came out,” Graham said.

Palace expects to see an uptick in performance for the January to March quarter from One Love’s turnout and it might be enough to put the company back in line with pre-COVID performances. But Graham isn’t too focused on the bump in performance. Instead, her attention is on clearing debt the company accumulated to keep the business afloat during one of the most challenging periods in the company’s history.

“We have debt that we need to clear and so until that is done, it will remain our main focus. The strike with the writers and actors is over so we expect better pictures and with better pictures we are a step closer to clearing that debt,” she said.

In 2022, Palace secured $653 million in financing from VM Investments Limited (VMIL), money used to clear an existing loan with Scotiabank and as working capital.

As at December 2023, the company had debt totalling $509.4 million. Revenues, at $255 million, were down 47 per cent for the quarter up to December 2023 compared to the similar period of 2022, but profit rose 6.8 per cent to $84 million year on year.

“By Christmas, we expect to really get back on stream with the blockbusters. Once we have that, then we will see a difference in our performance” Graham said.

Palace plans to continue attracting patrons to its movie houses with Madame Web later this month, followed by Dune: Part 2 in March and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga in May. Palace will also release Bad Boyz 4,Mufasa: The Lion King, Captain America: A Brave New World in July; the Joker and Transformer 2 in October, and The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim in December.