The Disney live-action renaissance is set to continue later this month with the long-awaited release of The Little Mermaid. If recent box office predictions are any indication, Halle Bailey’s Ariel is about to make a huge splash among audiences excited to see “Under the Sea” reimagined over 30 years later. Now comes the question of how will it stack up against other remakes from Walt Disney Studios – namely, 2019’s Aladdin, which came out during the same holiday weekend in May.
The Little Mermaid is set to hit theaters during the 4-day Memorial Day weekend. The current box office tracking data for the upcoming Disney movie predicts that Ariel’s journey to find her voice will bring $110 million in its first weekend, per Deadline. It’s a number that flirts with 2019’s Aladdin’s Memorial Day weekend when the movie debuted at $116.8 million ahead of it crossing $1 billion worldwide, surpassing the box office of the animated original and becoming the highest-grossing movie of Will Smith’s career.
With those numbers in mind, yes, it’s possible The Little Mermaid can beat Aladdin. Either way the tides turn, it’ll be a close one between these Disney remakes.
Release Date: May 26, 2023
Directed By: Rob Marshall
Written By: David Magee
Starring: Halle Bailey, Jonah Hauer-King, Melissa McCarthy, Javier Bardem, Daveed Diggs, Awkwafina and Jacob Tremblay
Runtime: 135 minutes
During the same weekend last year, Top Gun: Maverick kicked off its massive box office run that led the Tom Cruise movie to become one of the highest-grossing movies of 2022 movies with a $1.4 billion worldwide haul per Variety. Maverick soared with a $160.5 million opening that broke the record for Memorial Day weekend. At No. 2 of all time is Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End from 2007, which earned $139 million during the May weekend. Aladdin is at No. 6. If The Little Mermaid performs at its $110 million projection, it will be among the top eight best opening grosses during the May slot.
When it comes to the box office of The Little Mermaid vs. Aladdin in regard to their original animated films, you may be surprised to learn that Aladdin made significantly more than The Little Mermaid. The 1989 movie about a young mermaid made $211 million worldwide at a time when Disney was seeing a decline in popularity. The Little Mermaid is credited with beginning the Disney Renaissance, and helped usher in numerous classics and big hits from the animation studio. Proof of that is when Aladdin came out three years later to $504 million worldwide. Those numbers had the Arabian Night becoming not only the first animated feature to reach the half-billion-dollar mark, but also the highest-grossing animated film at the time.
This weekend, another Disney film, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 scored a huge opening night of $17 million ahead of expectations and is looking to a $110 million first weekend. In a couple of weeks, Universal’s huge action franchise will return with Fast X, before The Little Mermaid hits theaters the following week on May 26. With a wealth of huge popcorn movies awaiting Memorial Day weekend, it’ll be interesting to see how all the box office numbers shake out.
