“Bad Boys: Ride or Die” tops North American box office on opening weekend

LOS ANGELES, California | Xinhua | Sony Pictures’ action comedy “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” debuted atop the North American box office this weekend, bringing in a projected 56 million U.S. dollars, data from the measurement firm Comscore showed on Sunday.

The film also enjoyed an international debut of 48.6 million dollars for a global opening of 104.6 million dollars.

“Bad Boys: Ride or Die,” starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, is the fourth installment in the long-running Bad Boys franchise of buddy cop films.

“This is an excellent opening for the 4th episode of an action comedy series,” commented David A. Gross of movie consulting firm Franchise Entertainment Research in a newsletter, adding that: “Very few action comedies get to four episodes — the jokes start to run thin and the stories get repetitive — but when they do, they hold up well.”

The film has earned an approval rating of 64 percent based on 176 reviews to date on the review-aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, and an “A-” on an “A+” to “F” scale from audiences polled by the market research firm CinemaScore.

Sony Pictures’ animated comedy film “The Garfield Movie” came in second on its third weekend with 10 million dollars, pushing its North American cume to 68.6 million dollars for a worldwide total of 192.7 million dollars.

Rounding out the Top three, Paramount Pictures’ fantasy comedy film “IF” generated 8 million dollars on its fourth weekend for a North American total of 93.5 million dollars. ■