Box Office Showdown (5/26 - 5/28) About My Father, Kandahar, The Little Mermaid

[BluBonnet]

‘Little Mermaid’ Splashing To $10M+ In Previews – Early Box Office Read

Sources are telling us that Disney’s Rob Marshall directed The Little Mermaid is singing some high notes tonight of $10M+ in previews. Should that figure exceed $10.8M it will rep the 6th highest preview performance among PG and G rated titles in motion picture history. Tracking pegged the Halle Bailey movie at a $120M 4-day start over Memorial Day.

Remember, that preview cash is made up of Wednesday 6PM fan screenings at 500 premium screen theaters and early shows which began at 3PM today.

Even more impressive, Little Mermaid‘s preview figure bests that of Disney’s live action take of animated toon, Aladdin, from Memorial Day weekend 2019; that Will Smith pic doing $7M before grossing $31.3M on its first Friday for a $116.8M 4-day. Little Mermaid also easily beats the $2.3M previews (8PM start) of 2015’s Cinderella, which had a $23M first day, $67.8M start. However, Little Mermaid is swimming slower than Disney’s live action Beauty and the Beast from 2017 which did $16.3M, for a $63.7M Friday and $174.7M opening.

Female skewing movies, like Twilight for instance, often get a bad rep for being front-loaded. However, once a mass-appealing Disney princess movie fires up from its opening, it doesn’t let go. Beauty and the Beast only eased around -2% between its Thursday previews/Friday and Saturday business. Frozen 2 was +19% over a similar period while Aladdin, which starred Princess Jasmine, only eased -4% between its Thursday night/Friday and Saturday.

Though critics on Little Mermaid waned to 68% fresh, audiences on Rotten Tomatoes are very happy at 95%

We’re just getting started here.

[Britnasty]

I’m hearing it’s between 10.8-11.1M for the night.

[BluBonnet]

Pretty amazing than this is going to have a bigger opening than The Flash (if current predictions hold)

[Predatorix38417]

Originally Posted by BluBonnet

Pretty amazing than this is going to have a bigger opening than The Flash (if current predictions hold)

To be fair, Little Mermaid has had no direct competition since Mario so families are likely starving for theatrical content. Flash will be opening in an extremely crowded field having been preceded by Transformers and Spider-Verse in the two weeks prior and all three movies are targeting the same audience demographics, not to mention opening alongside fellow Disney movie Elemental, which will take away some of its potential family audience. So for Flash, I think long-term will be where it strives and we could see a repeat of Guardians Vol. 3 where the opening weekend is kinda soft but the second weekend over-performs due to word of mouth and no direct competition in its second week and it’ll hold steadily for most of the summer (or basically up until Blue Beetle opens).

[BluBonnet]

TLM looks to win the biggest opening weekend of any of Disney's toon-to-live-action remakes

‘Little Mermaid’ Singing Loudly With $125M Memorial Day Weekend Opening – Friday Update

FRIDAY LATE AFTERNOON: As we told you, once a Disney princess film gets momentum, well, it’s wandering free at the box office. Such is the case for The Little Mermaid, which after $10.3M in previews is seeing $38M for Friday, which will result in a $105M 3-day, and a $125M 4-day opening at 4,320 theaters per sources. Again, a great result for a predominantly female skewing tentpole; it’s the smaller movies aimed at women which the marketplace is still on the fence about. Little Mermaid‘s success here with female moviegoers also paves the way for another big summer: Warner Bros’ Barbie at the end of July.

If the Rob Marshall directed musical keeps pace, Little Mermaid will rank as the four highest Memorial Day opening ever after Top Gun: Maverick ($160.5M), Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End ($153M), and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull ($152M). Hands down, Little Mermaid buries Aladdin‘s 4-day start over the holiday of $116.8M, to be the best for a live action take of a Disney toon.

That preview figure of $10.3M is rolled into Friday’s figure and also counts $850K from the special fan Wednesday showtimes. Overall, Ariel’s preview number is the 7th best ever for a PG/G rated title.

After Little Mermaid, May tentpole holders, Universal’s Fast X and Disney’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 4, give the holiday weekend a spine. However, the counterprogramming– Legendary/Screen Gems’ The Machine, Lionsgate’s Sebastian Maniscalco comedy About My Father, and Open Road/Briarcliff’s Gerard Butler movie, Kandahar, are for nothing. We’ll make sense of these pics’ fates as they make their way through the weekend. See numbers below.

1) Little Mermaid (Dis) 4,320 theaters, Fri $38M, 3-day $105M, 4-day $125M/Wk 1

2) Fast X (Uni) 4,088 (+42) theaters, Fri $6M (-79%), 3-day $21.8M (-67%), 4-day $27.2M, Total $112.1M/Wk 2

3) Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (Dis) 3,940 (-510) theaters, Fri $5.4M (-36%) 3-day $20.6M (-36%) 4-day $26.6M, Total $306M/Wk 4
The MCU James Gunn swan song will cross the $300M mark in its 24th day of theatrical release on Sunday. GOTG 2 hit that number in 17 days. The first Guardians took 44 days to the three century mark stateside.

[ImBlu_DaBaDee]

Not even close to the biggest opening.

Beauty and the Beast 2017 - 170 million 3 day

The Lion King - 190 million 3 day

The Little Mermaid is tracking for a 125-130 FOUR DAY. Still a good opening. But chill out.

[BluBonnet]

[ImBlu_DaBaDee]

And with it being dead on arrival overseas it will be lucky to cross 600 million worldwide by the time it’s over, making a cool 1 BILLION dollars less than The Lion King and half of Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin. With a 250 million dollar budget it will barely break even.

[BluBonnet]

[Farerb]

Originally Posted by ImBlu_DaBaDee

And with it being dead on arrival overseas it will be lucky to cross 600 million worldwide by the time it’s over, making a cool 1 BILLION dollars less than The Lion King and half of Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin. With a 250 million dollar budget it will barely break even.

If it's lucky, it might make more than Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.

[Underworld54]

Originally Posted by BluBonnet

Your few shares of Disney stock might just go up a couple cents...congrats!

[BluBonnet]

[BluBonnet]

[Underworld54]

TLM is Flounder-ing overseas in most major markets. China, SK, and Mexico just to name a few.

[BluBonnet]

Looks like only The Machine will come away in relatively good shape this weekend... maybe The Force is still with Mark Hamill?

[Underworld54]

Looks like Fast X will repeat as box-office champ in overseas market. In Finland, TLM managed only like just over 700 admissions.

[Farerb]

Originally Posted by Underworld54

Looks like Fast X will repeat as box-office champ in overseas market. In Finland, TLM managed only like just over 700 admissions.

Why do you think it's a failure outside of North America?

[Underworld54]

Originally Posted by Farerb

Why do you think it's a failure outside of North America?

It's not a failure everywhere, it should be fine in Europe. As far as where it's doing poorly? I can't speculate.

[BluBonnet]

Looks a little like... corporate synergy?

[Joey9775]

China propping up Fast and Furious like Transformers. Stuff go boom, don't need to pay attention to dialogue - profit.