The Memorial Day weekend may not be over yet, but that is not stopping exhibitors from calling the box office in favor of Disney’s live-action The Little Mermaid.
According to Variety, the film is on track to debut a whopping $118 million over the total four-day weekend. It should be noted that $96 million of that was made over the first three days.
Overseas the film nabbed an additional $68 million. With those numbers, the film has nabbed the fifth highest Memorial Day weekend opening in history.
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Now, the film’s budget was a steep $250 million, so audiences will have to stay on course in order for it to earn a steady profit. With the highly anticipated animated sequel Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse hitting theaters next weekend that may be hard, but it’s not impossible.
Nevertheless, the film’s win on this weekend alone “gives Disney the green light to keep mining its [animated] vault,” Paul Dergarabedian says. He’s a senior media analyst at the media measurement company Comscore who spoke to Variety.
READ: ‘The Little Mermaid’ Press Conference [TRANSCRIBED]
The Little Mermaid features the original music by Alan Menken (Tangled and 1989’s The Little Mermaid) in addition to four brand new songs co-written by Lin-Manuel Miranda (Encanto).
Aside from Bailey, the film stars Jonah Hauer-King (A Dog’s Way Home) as Prince Eric, Melissa McCarthy (Bridesmaids) as Ursula, Awkwafina (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings) as Scuttle, Daveed Diggs (Snowpiercer) as Sebastian, and Jacob Tremblay (Room) as Flounder. Also set to star is Emily Coates, Jude Akuwudike, Noma Dumezweni, Russell Balogh, and Adrian Christopher.
The film is in theaters everywhere now.
