Disney’s The Little Mermaid is looking to deliver one of the top Memorial Day weekend debuts ever, after grossing $38 million on Friday, including over $10 million from Thursday previews. The live-action remake of the classic animated film is expected to generate $104 million across the traditional three-day weekend, and around $125 million across the extended four-day holiday weekend, coming in ahead of expectations. This beats the $116.8 million that the House of Mouse’s live-action Aladdin remake grossed across the same frame in 2019.
If these estimates hold, The Little Mermaid’s Memorial Day bow will be among the top five of all time, behind Top Gun: Maverick ($160.5 million), Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End ($153 million) and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull ($152 million). Directed by Rob Marshall and starring newcomer Halle Bailey in the titular role, The Little Mermaid was produced on a reported budget of $250 million, and is currently tracking to gross around $80 million from overseas markets by Sunday, which should put its global debut above $200 million.
Aladdin legged it to over $1 billion globally, as did the live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast, and considering the top-tier source material, The Little Mermaid has certainly set itself up for a similarly excellent lifetime haul with this debut. The reviews have been mostly positive, with the film currently sitting at a “fresh” 67% rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes and earning an excellent A CinemaScore from opening day audiences. Collider’s own Ross Bonaime called it “one of the rare live-action remakes that manages to capture that Disney magic” in his review.
Last week’s number one film, Fast X, is eyeing a hefty drop in its second weekend. The 10th installment in the long-running action franchise is continuing to display diminishing returns domestically, despite generating sustained interest in overseas markets. Fast X added $6.3 million on its second Friday, taking its running domestic total to $91 million. By Sunday, the film will pass the $100 million mark stateside, and by Monday, it is expected to hit around $113 million. Globally the film has made more than $500 million, but it still has a long way to go before it can compare with some of the franchise’s top-grossing movies, two of which — Furious 7 and The Fate of the Furious — have made more than $1 billion worldwide.
A Handful of New Releases Opened Low
Disney’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 slipped to the third spot after four weekends in the top two. The superhero threequel added $5.4 million this Friday, and is expected to make around $20 million across the weekend. Guardians of the Galaxy 3 had a relatively soft $116 million opening in the first week of May, but it managed to deliver one of the top holds in Marvel Cinematic Universe history in its second weekend. The movie quietly stayed afloat over the next couple of weeks, and will pass $300 million domestically and $700 million worldwide by Sunday. Anything around or above Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’s lifetime haul of $863 million should be considered a win, considering that the movie was marketed as the emotional closing chapter for a beloved trilogy.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie is expected to narrowly claim the fourth spot this weekend, despite being available on digital for a couple of weeks. The mega-hit animated movie added $1.6 million on Friday, and is expected to generate over $8 million across the four-day extended weekend. This should take its running domestic total to $560 million. The sole newcomer to debut in the top five this week is The Machine, starring Burt Kreischer and Mark Hamill. The action-comedy made $2.2 million on Friday, and is expected to gross around $7 million across the extended holiday weekend. Two other new releases — the Gerard Butler action vehicle Kandahar and the comedy film About My Father, starring Robert De Niro — are expected to debut outside the top five.
You can watch our interview with The Little Mermaid star Bailey here, and stay tuned to Collider for more box office updates over the weekend.