The much talked about ‘Bob Marley: One Love‘ biopic has set a big new box office record in the United States.

The film has scored the biggest non-Friday Valentine’s Day opening, taking in US$14 million when it debuted in theatres last Wednesday.

This more than doubled what its nearest rival, Sony’s critically-panned Madame Web took in with the Dakota Johnson-led superhero movie cashing in just US$6.05 million. However, critics also weren’t too kind to One Love with the biopic landing a 43 per cent Rotten Tomatoes rating.

Main actor praises Bob Marley

The film’s audience score is much higher with 94 per cent rating it fresh. One Love stars Kingsley Ben-Adir as the Jamaican reggae legend, with the actor even learning how to play guitar for the Bob Marley role.

While viewers won’t hear Ben-Adir’s singing voice in every scene of One Love, he still felt it important to learn how to sing, in order to help him better understand Marley’s music.

“I wanted to learn to play and sing because that’s what Bob did,” Ben-Adir told Digital Spy.

“He was a musician and he woke up every day at 5 and he played the guitar and he wrote songs. It’s like playing a footballer and never kicking a football. I wanted to know what that feels like. In movies, you can cheat and pretend and mime, but you can’t mime Bob. You can’t mimic him; you can’t imitate him,” the actor explained.

In Thursday’s update, One Love was bigger than Wednesday’s projected earning US$14 million—the best Valentine’s Day mid-week take ever. Audiences loved it more than critics with an ‘A’ CinemaScore, 5 stars on Screen Engine/Comscore’s PostTrak and an 80 per cent ‘definite recommend’. In addition, it has a Rotten Tomatoes audience score of 95 per cent.

Sony/Marvel’s Madame Web did $6.05 million at 4,013 theaters with a C+ CinemaScore. That’s lower than the B earned by Marvel Studio’s The Marvels, but it’s the same grade as Sony /Marvel’s Morbius.

At this point, studios are sticking to forecasts of US$30 million+ for Bob Marley: One Love over six days and US$20 million+ for Madame Web.