Thus far, Summer 2023 has pretty much gone as predicted. Marvel Studios kicked off May with the release of James Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, which successfully dominated for the first two weekends of the month, and then Louis Leterrier's Fast X replaced it in the top spot at the box office. Now, Rob Marshall's The Little Mermaid has swum up to enchant audiences for the extended Memorial Day holiday, and it has lived up to expectations in regards to ticket sales – though its success has also notably left the latest Vin Diesel blockbuster floundering domestically.
Check out the full Top 10 for the weekend below, and join me after for analysis!
The Little Mermaid Is Already Set To Cross $100 Million Domestically, And Surely Will Thanks To Memorial Day
The Little Mermaid was far from a cheap movie to produce. According to Variety, the live-action remake of Disney's animated classic cost a whopping $250 million to make – and that's not a figure that includes publicity and marketing expenses. As a result of this, there was no expectation that the film would be able to break even after its opening weekend, but the film is certainly off to a great start.
The Numbers is reporting that the Rob Marshall musical has made an estimated $95.5 million through its first three days in theaters domestically, which means that it will quickly join 2023's nine figure club by the time cinemas close up shop on Monday night. It's the fourth best start for a blockbuster in the United States and Canada thus far this year – sitting behind Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic's The Super Mario Bros. Movie ($146.4 million), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 ($118.4 million), and Peyton Reed's Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania ($106.1 million).
By 2023 standards, it's a hot start for the film, but the numbers lose a bit of their sheen when you look at the results compared to the other major live-action remakes Disney has produced in the last few years – particularly those based on the animated hits that were released in the late 1980s and 1990s. The Little Mermaid had a better opening than Guy Ritchie's Aladdin from 2019, but Jon Favreau's The Lion King made $191.8 million domestically in its first three days, and Bill Condon's Beauty And The Beast scored $175.8 million.
Overseas, the new blockbuster has made $68.3 million, which brings its global total to $163.8 million. Based on results from CinemaScore surveys (which have given the film an "A" grade) and a 95 percent Audience Score on Rotten Tomatoes (contrasting a tepid critical response), movie-goers seems to be enjoying the film, and that will hopefully lead to positive word of mouth – which the movie is going to need if its wants to ultimately be seen as a box office success.
As noted, The Little Mermaid will get nice boost from the three-day holiday weekend, but there are potentially rough waters ahead for the film in the month of June. Similar to how the March release schedule was packed tight with major releases coming every Friday, the sixth month of 2023 is stacked. Joaquim Dos Santos, Justin K. Thompson, and Kemp Powers' Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse is now just days away from hitting theaters, and its anticipated to be hugely popular. In the weeks that follow, we'll see the release of Steven Caple Jr.'s Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts, Andy Muschietti's The Flash, Peter Sohn's Elemental and James Mangold's Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny.
That wave of titles may end up giving The Little Mermaid trouble as it tries to stick around in the Top 5, so its best shot to be considered a true win for Disney is making as much money as possible in the short term. In other words, the film doesn't want to suffer a similar fate to what's happening with Fast X this weekend.
Fast X Has A Rough Second Weekend, But Simultaneously Crosses $500 Million Worldwide
With a budget even higher than The Little Mermaid's ($340 million, per The Wrap), Fast X is in a box office situation with much higher stakes, and things are not going nearly as well. The film had just the seventh-best three day for a blockbuster in the action franchise – making $67 million – and while ticket sales overseas are helping to balance out that low figure, things aren't going super well on the domestic front in the movie's second weekend.
Following a feature's theatrical debut, a weekend-to-weekend drop of anything higher than 60 percent is bad news, and the $23 million brought in domestically by Fast X since Friday is a 66 percent fall. That's not as rough as the 70 percent dip that Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania made headlines with in February, but that movie also cost $140 million less to make than the latest installment of the Fast and the Furious franchise.
While things aren't going so well in the United States and Canada for Fast X, Universal Pictures probably isn't sweating Vin Diesel's promise of a series-ending trilogy too much thanks to the business that is being done by the blockbuster abroad. The movie is now on the verge of crossing $400 million in foreign markets, which means its worldwide total presently sits at $507.3 million. It's now ranked as the fifth biggest film of 2023 – a list that is topped by The Super Mario Bros. Movie ($1.3 billion) and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 ($731 million).
With Intellectual Properties Dominating, Smaller New Releases Populate The Middle And Bottom Of The Weekend Box Office Top 10
There was no chance that this weekend at the box office was going to end any other way than with The Little Mermaid on top, but that didn't stop competing studios from putting out a number of new releases in time for Memorial Day. Three more new movies were released in over 2,000 locations this past weekend, taking over the middle of the Top 10, and the latest film from A24 – Nicole Holofcener's You Hurt My Feelings – took the number eight spot playing on just 912 screens.
Comedy fans excited to see popular stand-ups get a feature film spotlight were provided a feast this weekend thanks to both Peter Atencio's The Machine starring Bert Kreischer and Laura Terruso's About My Father starring Sebastian Maniscalco. Sony Pictures and Lionsgate opted to try and go head-to-head with these two releases for the holiday, and the former barely edged out the latter making nearly $5 million in the last three days.
Meanwhile, Ric Roman Waugh's Kandahar with Gerard Butler was unfortunately unable to replicate the success that Butler's action movie Plane had back in January. While Plane got off to a surprisingly fast start, making $10.3 million in its debut, the new movie named after a city in Afghanistan only managed to make $2.4 million.
Looking ahead, next week should yield some fascinating box office results with the current crop of movies dealing with the arrival of not only Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse but also Rob Savage's much-hyped Stephen King adaptation The Boogeyman. Be sure to head back here to CinemaBlend next Sunday to see how everything shakes out, and check out our 2023 Movie Release Calendar to discover all of the titles heading to theaters in months to come.
