Battle at the Box Office 5/27/24
Furiosa and The Garfield Movie were in a death race to win one of the slowest Memorial Day weekends in decades, but Furiosa managed to eke out the pyrrhic victory.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga opened to $26.3 million over the three-day weekend and an estimated $32 million, including today’s Memorial Day holiday. It’s about $20 million off from where Mad Max: Fury Road opened back in 2015, and, adjusted for inflation, it’s less than half of that movie’s opening. It’s also less than the opening of The Fall Guy that kicked off this disappointing summer season. Worldwide, Furiosa has made $64.5 million so far. The movie’s R rating and 2 1/2 hour runtime probably contributed to the disappointing opening and the fact that, despite critical acclaim, the entire Mad Max franchise is an extremely niche geek property whose style probably doesn’t appeal to a large number of the general movie-going audience. The movie had a mixed B+ CinemaScore but a 90% audience rating on RottenTomatoes, so Warner Bros. Discovery’s only hope is that Furiosa has long legs and strong word of mouth. One saving grace is that there isn’t a substantial new blockbuster release this coming weekend, so there is no direct competition until June 7th, when Bad Boys: Ride or Die releases.
The Garfield Movie was just behind Furiosa in second place with $24 million for the three-day weekend and an estimated $31 million for the four-day holiday. Those are the numbers as of writing this article, but there’s a chance when the actual Memorial Day numbers come in, Garfield may come out on top. The movie has made $97.4 million so far worldwide. The movie got the same B+ CinemaScore rating from audiences but a much more dire critical response. The audience score is 82% on RottenTomatoes, and there isn’t any direct family competition until June 14th when Inside Out 2 comes out, so it could hang on as the only option for families looking to see a movie in the next few weeks. It was the best opening ever for Garfield movie, topping Garfield: The Movie from 2004, which opened to $21.7 million.
Garfield‘s main competition, IF, dropped to third place with $16.1 million, dropping 52% from last weekend’s opening. The movie now has $58.6 million domestically and $103.5 million worldwide.
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes and The Fall Guy rounded out the top five. The latter is already available to rent or purchase digitally, although it only dropped 28% from last weekend. It currently has $72.8 million domestically and $145.5 million worldwide. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes has $298.6 million worldwide so far and is the only movie that has performed well from the current summer blockbuster crop.
Further down the list, Sight from Angel Studios opened in seventh place with $2.7 million. That’s the lowest opening for the faith-based studio, which broke out in a massive way last summer with Sound of Freedom. Babes managed to break into the top 10 thanks to an expansion in just under 580 theaters and made $1 million, almost topping Back in Black, which plummeted to ninth place in its second weekend.
The per-theater average went to Furiosa, which earned $6,914 in each of the 3,804 theaters it played in over the weekend.