The Beekeeper has broken a record of nearly a decade. The new action movie, which was directed by Suicide Squad’s David Ayer, stars Jason Statham as Adam Clay, a beekeeper who is also a former member of a clandestine organization of elite fighters. When his close friend Eloise Parker (Phylicia Rashad) dies by suicide after being taken in by a phishing scam, Clay uses his skills to exact violent revenge on the company responsible. The movie also stars Emmy Raver-Lampman, Josh Hutcherson, Bobby Naderi, Minnie Driver, and Jeremy Irons.
Per Variety, the Beekeeper release is projected to take in an additional $8.4 million by the end of its second weekend at the domestic box office. Given the fact that its opening weekend earned $16.6 million, this would be a week-on-week drop of just 49%. This would mark the lowest week 2 drop for a Statham action movie since 2016, when The Mechanic: Resurrection dropped 40.5% after opening to $7.4 million.
How Does The Beekeeper Compare To Other Recent Jason Statham Movies Overall?
Although The Beekeeper has broken this record for Statham, its success is somewhat relative. Many previous Jason Statham movies have had much higher opening weekends, generally because they were already part of established franchises with wide fanbases, so even with larger drops, they had still grossed more by a similar point in their domestic runs. Below, check out The Beekeeper’s opening weekend and 10-day domestic gross compared to several other movies of his from the past few years:
Being attached to an established franchise doesn’t guarantee success, as the overall gross for Expend4bles proves. In fact, The Beekeeper’s domestic haul alone has nearly outgrossed that movie’s worldwide take of $37.9 million already. However, The Beekeeper nevertheless can’t compete with the Fast Saga and the Meg franchise when compared to the raw numbers.
Regardless, between generally positive The Beekeeper reviews and this outsized gross for an original Statham action movie, the new release is performing well across the board. It has also considerably outgrossed his record-setting The Mechanic: Resurrection at the domestic box office, which only ever earned $21.2 million in North America. As its run continues, it will likely grow into a reasonable mid-sized hit, which is no small feat for an untested action property.