Disney’s latest live-action remake, ‘The Little Mermaid,’ will hit the $110-$130 million estimates for its 4-day opening week, likely landing somewhere in $118-$120 million domestic.
Globally the film is looking at $68.3 million for Friday-Sunday. Domestically the movie did a three-day performance of $95.5 million. The three-day global total should come in at around $163.8 million.
These totals could go up or down. We won’t know until next week what the final numbers are.
The media is already waxing poetic about how it’s “winning” compared to other live-action remakes. It’s doing well; however, while the film is reportedly better than many of the live-action remakes we have gotten, the box office totals are good, but “winning” is all about perspective.
‘Aladdin’ globally brought in $212 million for its three-day total and $234.7 million for four days. Domestically it performed lower than ‘The Little Mermaid’ with $90.5 million in the first three days and $113 million for the four-day weekend. They are pretty close domestically, but globally Ariel isn’t faring as well.
Of course, it’s nowhere near the openings of ‘The Lion King’ or ‘Beauty and the Beast,’ and it’s still behind ‘The Jungle Book’ when comparing the same time frames. But this does put ‘The Little Mermaid’ in the top five live-action remakes released to theaters.
What seems to be holding ‘The Little Mermaid’ back is the overseas market.
It is possible that the film could have legs (yes, I see the irony), and it could go strong for a few weeks and end up making considerably more than expected. Next week box office will be one to watch. Hopefully, the drop-off isn’t too steep, and if it can hold on like ‘Super Mario Bros.’ did, we could see it going on too much higher totals.
As of now, ‘The Little Mermaid’ is going strong with its estimated opening totals, but apples to apples, it’s doing well, but it’s not the biggest opening.
What do you think? Do you think it will beat out ‘The Lion King,’ ‘Beauty and the Beast,’ ‘The Jungle Book’ and ‘Aladdin?’
Comment and let us know!
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