The Beekeeper is setting Jason Statham up for a huge box office redemption. The new movie, which was directed by Suicide Squad’s David Ayer, follows Adam Clay (Statham), a beekeeper who is a former member of an elite team known as the Beekeepers. When a phishing scam leads to the death by suicide of his friend and neighbor Eloise Parker (Phylicia Rashad), Clay embarks on a violent rampage to exact revenge on the corrupt tech company behind the scam, which turns out to be part of a much larger conspiracy.
Per Deadline, The Beekeeper release is projected to earn an opening weekend of $16.8 million at the domestic box office. It is also on its way to a 4-day domestic total of $19.2 million over the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday weekend. These totals mean that the movie will have already outgrossed Statham’s previous action outing, the 2023 sequel Expend4bles, which earned a total domestic haul of $16.7 million, in just one weekend.
How Will The Beekeeper Compare To Other Jason Statham Action Movies?
The R-rated The Beekeeper has turned out a good showing at the weekend box office, taking No. 2 behind the IP-driven PG-13 musical remake Mean Girls. This, plus its dominance over Statham’s most recent franchise outing, is a good sign for the movie’s future. However, Statham has starred in a string of hits that the new movie’s total domestic gross might not be able to live up to, including six installments in the mega-blockbuster Fast & Furious franchise. Check out the opening domestic grosses and total runs of his five most recent action movies compared with The Beekeeper below:
Overall, it seems that Statham’s recent non-franchise movies typically double their domestic openings, which means that The Beekeeper could probably expect an overall domestic total of around $33 million or more. This wouldn’t be able to compete with the grosses of even a middling sequel like Fast X, which underperformed at the domestic box office. However, that would still be the best domestic result for a non-sequel Statham movie since The Meg earned $145.5 million in 2018.
The Beekeeper reviews may also help boost the movie above its completion. It is the first Fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes for Statham since Wrath of Man in 2021, and it is tied for the best score of his since the Certified Fresh action-comedy Spy in 2015. It seems highly unlikely to pass the $50 million milestone given the precedent his previous movies have set, but it could nevertheless potentially be boosted high enough to kick-start a Beekeeper franchise.
