It’s Memorial Day weekend and we have two newcomers jumping into the box office fray as holdovers try to hold onto some of the Memorial Day box office glory.
Memorial Day weekend used to be the start of summer movie season but in recent years studios have released larger scale films as early as March. While Memorial Day used to be the go-to weekend for big studio movies, it has been a bit sluggish for would-be hits that have tried to dominate the weekend. The films have either bombed (Disney’s Tomorrowland, Alice Through the Looking Glass), or underperformed, i.e. 20th Century Fox’s X-Men: Apocalypse ($79.8M over four days). The box office will need to make up ground this weekend as the summer movie season is about 10% down from last year.
Disney is hoping that Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, the fifth in the series, reverses its sour box office streak for the four-day holiday stretch, which started with 2010’s Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time ($200 million production cost, $336.4 million global gross). The last film, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, opened to $90 million back in 2011 which was decent considering the franchise appeared to be on a downward slope by then. Leading man Johnny Depp too could use a boost at the box office, his last $100 million-plus opening being 2010’s Alice in Wonderland ($116 million). Post On Strangers Tides, his three-day stateside starts have averaged at $20 million a film over the last six years.
It will be interesting to see how the new film performs in an age of rapid word of mouth via social media that has only increased since the last film was released 6 years ago. The film’s started on the fresh side of things with The Curse of the Black Pearl (79% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) but each sequel has been embraced less and less by critics. The new film currently sits with a rotten score of 34% as of this writing but the franchise has been critic-proof in the past so maybe that will be the case again here. The last film was the lowest grossing film of the franchise in the states with a gross of $241 million it crossed the $1 billion mark worldwide thanks to 77% of its coin coming from foreign markets. The foreign box office is an even bigger player here now so if the film underperforms slightly domestically, it should make up major ground internationally. I’m predicting about $80-85 million over the four days and that’s only because the franchise isn’t as hot as it once was but it should still hold its own.
Next is the Baywatch movie and it has the comedy ranks all to itself this weekend and should be a top choice for males and the younger crowd over the weekend. The film is getting ahead of the game with previews starting tonight at last night at 7:00 PM and opening wide today, one day before Pirates hits. Working in its favor is the production budget is on the low end ($60 million) so it won’t take that much for the film to be a significant hit this summer (unless something goes completely array). Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has proven to be a strong box office presence and is a big international star in his own right so his name alone guarantees some kind of rush for the film this weekend. Also, not a slouch is Zac Efron who has turned his brand of frat boy humor into decent returns at the box office. Both actors also have a huge presence on social, especially Johnson, who has managed to connect with his many fans via Twitter and Instagram. I’ll even give Quantico actress Priyanka Chopra some credit, who plays the villain in the film because she has some international appeal as well due to the show and her huge fan following as a Bollywood actress in India. I’m predicting about $40 million over the four days and the rest of it will come down to if audiences ignore the reviews because it sits with a not so great rotten score of 17% on Rotten Tomatoes as of this writing.
The one holdover everyone will be paying attention to is Alien: Covenant which bowed on the low end of tracking with $36 million last weekend. Memorial Day weekend should soften the week 2 decline a bit so it’s not all dire just yet but after this weekend, things will most likely become very bleak for the film. I predict $18-20 million over the four day weekend.
Check out the final box office results on Monday!
