Battle at the Box Office 5/29/23

As expected, Disney’s live-action remake of The Little Mermaid dominated the Memorial Day weekend, putting up the 5th best Memorial Day opening of all time.

The Little Mermaid took in $95.4 million for the three-day weekend, with an estimated $118 million for the four-day holiday weekend.  That tops 2019’s Aladdin, which made $116.8 million for the four-day Memorial Day weekend.  It’s way below the openings of the live-action remakes of The Lion King and Beauty and The Beast, both of which were closer to a $200 million opening when they debuted.  Adjusted for inflation, the original 1989 Little Mermaid would have opened to $15.7 million in today’s dollars.  Internationally, The Little Mermaid opened much softer than Disney was probably expecting, making $68 million outside the domestic box office for a worldwide total so far of $185.8 million.  Aladdin took in $121 million internationally outside the domestic market when it opened, so while The Little Mermaid opened higher domestically, it seems like it might not be able to match it worldwide.

Fast X dropped to second place with $23 million, dropping 66% from last weekend’s opening.  The movie now has $113.5 million domestically and $512.8 milion worldwide, which beats the total worldwide grosses of the first four entries in the series.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 took in another $20.3 million, bringing it to $305.5 million domestically and $737.1 million worldwide.  Domestically, Guardinas Vol.3 now sits between Iron Man 2 and Captain America: The Winter Soldier and worldwide, it sits between Thor: Love and Thunder and The Winter Soldier.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie and The Machine rounded out the top 5, with the Bert Kreischer movie edging out fellow stand-up comic led comedy About My Father.  The Machine took in $5 million for the three day weekend.  About My Father took 6th place and made $4.3 million for the three day weekend.

Gerard Butler’s Kandahar opened to 7th place with $2.4 million, which is one of the lower openings of Gerard Butler’s career and way below Plane, which opened to over $10 million earlier this year.  CopShop and Chasing Mavericks are the only two wide release Butler releases that Kandahar beat in terms of opening weekends.

The Julia Louis-Dreyfuss starring You Hurt My Feelings opened to 8th place with $1.3 million just outside of 1,000 theaters.

The Per Theater average went to The Little Mermaid, which made $22,083 in each of the 4,320 theaters it played in over the weekend.