There will be moviegoers at the Memorial Day weekend box office; the industry can be thankful for that. Just not as many as the previous two years when the entire 4-day frame exceeded $200M+.
With Warner Bros‘ prequel Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and Alcon/Sony‘s The Garfield Movie hitting marquees, the volume of event product increases, which is good thing. More big movies give people more reasons to attend. Unfortunately, both titles are not Top Gun: Maverick ($160.5M all-time Memorial Day opening record) nor is it last year’s The Little Mermaid stateside start ($118.8M) in their mass appeal.
Furiosa is both a reboot of the Mad Max franchise and a prequel as Anya Taylor-Joy steps into the one armed action of Charlize Theron, who fans of the George Miller franchise are still rabid about when its comes to the desert vigilante’s big screen portrayal. After a big Cannes world premiere which won over critics at 85% certified fresh –a feat that last year’s big event pic at the fest, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny couldn’t pull off — Furiosa is eyeing an $80M-$85M global start. Broken out, that’s $40M-$45M abroad and another $40M+ four-day domestic.
Internationally, Furiosa will hit 75 markets throughout this opening weekend. Tomorrow includes majors France and Korea, followed by Germany, Italy, Australia and all of Latin America on Thursday; and the UK and Spain on Friday. Beyond that, Japan goes May 31 and China (with no cuts!) releases on June 7.
As a comp, Fury Road opened to $46.5M at today’s rates in the same suite of markets that are going this session.
In the first swath, we’re expecting France, UK, Latin American hubs and Korea to pop at the top. Overall, it’s worth noting that the current moviegoing landscape is feeling wonky and in flux.
Miller wanted to go with a different actress in the new film since it covers an age span of 8 to 18 years for Furiosa. If he had cast Theron, he says he would have had to use de-aging technology and he wasn’t a fan of what he saw in The Irishman. Still, the minus of Theron here is part of a possible slowdown with Furiosa. It’s a brilliant movie, and fans like it, it’s just that it’s a No. 2 for them behind 2015’s multi-Oscar winning Mad Max: Fury Road.
Hopefully, Furiosa can overcome those hurdles. First choice is best with men over 25. Furiosa will have all the gas of 400 Imax auditoriums, Dolby Cinemas, PLF screens, Screen X, Dbox and 4DX. In total 3,750 theaters-plus for the $168M production before global P&A spend. Furiosa fires up at 3PM stateside.
Alcon/Sony’s The Garfield Movie already has $49M in the till from a staggered offshore launch with 40% of its international release still yet to come. It’s looking at $30M over four-days stateside at 4,000 locations including 3D and some PLFs. Thursday previews start at 2PM. Alcon Entertainment financed the feature and Columbia Pictures serves as worldwide distributor, excluding China. DNEG animated the film. The Mark Dindal directed title features the voices of Chris Pratt as Garfield, as well as Samuel L. Jackson, Ving Rhames, Hannah Waddingham, Cecily Strong, Nicholas Hoult, Brett Goldstein, Bowen Yang, Harvey Guillen, and Snoop Dogg. RT Critics aren’t wowed at 47% Rotten. First choice resides with women under 25.
Paramount’s John Krasinski directed/produced/written IF looks to be off -50% from its 3-day of $33.7M with a $16.8M second weekend.
Angels Studios has in around 2,000 theaters, the Andrew Hyatt directed and written Sight starring Terry Chen, Greg Kinnear and Natasha Mumba. Blurb: When a blind orphan arrives in his waiting room seeking a miracle, a world-renowned eye surgeon must confront his past-and draw on the resilience he gained growing up in China during the Cultural Revolution-to try to restore her sight. The movie is looking to do low single digits over 4-days. Eleven reviews currently on RT are at 73% fresh.