The Biggest January Movie of All-Time Will Astonish You

January is not a timeframe known for launching countless hit movies. On the contrary, it’s typically used as a go-to example of a month where only bad movies rot. “The dumping ground” is a common term used for motion pictures opening in wide release during the very first month of the calendar year. However, that doesn’t mean January has never produced moneymakers. On the contrary, thanks to the lack of competition, January has often seen cheaper titles like Ride Along or The Devil Inside secure mighty box office hauls. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king, after all.

However, exempting movies like American Sniper (which opened in limited release in December before going wide in January), this month has yielded only one truly massive hit movie. It’s the kind of film that delivered a domestic box office haul you’d normally find in the summertime. By far the biggest January movie of all time is none other than Bad Boys for Life, the 2020 sequel to the original 1995 Bad Boys. These Bad Boys movies have often been profitable, but Bad Boys for Life cemented the saga in the record books in a fascinating way.

How Big Was Bad Boys For Life?

For over a decade, the biggest movie ever domestically to debut in wide release in January was the 2009 comedy Paul Blart: Mall Cop. That film’s $146.33 million domestic haul came close to getting toppled on multiple occasions, including 2016’s Kung Fu Panda 3 ($143.5 million) and Split ($139.29 million). However, it was impossible to dethrone the Blart. Ironically, it would take another motion picture from Paul Blart distributor Sony/Columbia Pictures to topple the Kevin James vehicle’s North American sum. Enter: Bad Boys for Life, which debuted in theaters on January 17, 2020.

The first Bad Boys grossed $65 million domestically, while its sequel took in $138.6 million in 2003. Given this track record, expectations were solid for Bad Boys for Life, but nobody was expecting it to massively outgross Bad Boys II. Those expectations got toppled once For Life’s opening weekend numbers came in and it grossed $62.5 million over its first three days alone. This January 2020 release more than doubled the domestic bow of Sony’s June 2019 blockbuster Men in Black International. Who would’ve thought a January newcomer could accomplish such a feat?

Ten weeks into Bad Boys for Life’s domestic box office run, movie theaters across the globe were shut down in response to COVID-19. Even with it not being able to run for months and months in North America, Bad Boys for Life still amassed a $206.3 million domestic haul that put it well above Paul Blart: Mall Cop’s North American gross. Bad Boys for Life was the first-ever movie in history to open directly into wide release in January and exceed $150 and $200 million domestically. Improving roughly 50% on Bad Boys II’s domestic cume only sweetened the box office pot.

[Related: Predicting the Biggest Movies at the Box Office in 2025]

How Did Bad Boys for Life Reach This Box Office Milestone?

Five years after Bad Boys for Life’s premiere, it doesn’t look like any immediate contenders for its box office crown are on the horizon. How is it that this action sequel is poised to remain the biggest January movie ever domestically for the foreseeable future? It’s the same phenomenon that led to Paul Blart: Mall Cop remaining January’s biggest release for a little over 10 years. Hollywood just doesn’t see January as fertile ground for launching new movies. This perception is so firmly entrenched in Hollywood thinking that not even a big hit like Bad Boys for Life can fully obliterate it.

Compare that to, say, May, a month viewed as one of the most lucrative times of year to launch new motion pictures. Given the constant slew of new features dropping in May, there are always challengers to that month’s various box office records. With January still seen as a toxic zone to debut major new features, it’s hard for new challengers to appear to dethrone Bad Boys for Life. Still, if one blockbuster movie can upend the perception of how big January new releases can be, it can happen again.

Bad Boys for Life, 2020’s biggest domestic title by default, was an encouraging sign that a movie people are excited about can soar any time of the year. Just look at how its North American haul outstripped the lifetime gross of its follow-up, Bad Boys: Ride or Die. That installment dropped in the heart of summer 2024 and proved quite profitable. However, it just missed out-grossing Bad Boys for Life. A January Bad Boys movie earning more than its summertime brethren encapsulates how a handful of frames in the summertime aren’t the only zones where massive hits can grow. Such is the wisdom of January success story Bad Boys for Life and, for that matter, Paul Blart: Mall Cop.