Hello everyone,
BOX OFFICE: The times have really changed. 2 years ago, Paramount released “Top Gun Maverick” on Memorial Day weekend. It zoomed past expectations making $160 million over 4 days – a new Memorial Day weekend record – and remained the #1 movie on the domestic box office charts for 3 weeks. This year, the weekend before Memorial Day weekend Paramount released “IF” which came in below expectations and fell over 50% to come in 3rd and make $16 million (3-day) and $22 million (4-day) over Memorial day weekend. Fortunately, Paramount also has “A Quiet Place: Day One” coming this summer. One new site I read said maybe John Krasinski (director of “IF” and the 2 previous “A Quiet Place” movies) should have directed the prequel instead of “IF”. After all, “A Quiet Place Part 2” did well over Memorial Day 2021 when some movie theaters were still closed and people weren’t coming back to movie theaters yet.
Last year, Universal released “Oppenheimer” which zoomed past expectations and became one of the biggest movies of the summer and the #5 movie of 2023 at the domestic box office. This year, Universal released “The Fall Guy” which came in below expectations 4 weeks ago and is doing so poorly it’s already available on some streaming sites and on-demand. Fortunately, Universal has a couple more movies this summer including “Despicable Me 4” which should do well since it’s the only major release on July 4th weekend this year
Also last year, Warner Bros released “Barbie” which BLEW AWAY expectations and stayed at the top of the box office for 4 weeks. It eventually became the #1 movie of 2023 at the domestic box office making over $635 million domestically. This year, Warner Bros released “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” which ended up below expectations making approx. $26 million (3-day) and a little over $32 million (4-day). Fortunately, Warner Bros has a few other new movies opening this summer. Although, I noticed they’re ALREADY starting the advertising (I even saw some commercials) for “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” coming from Warner Bros in September.
Except for 2020 (when most movie theaters were closed due to the pandemic), “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” is the LOWEST MEMORIAL DAY OPENING WEEKEND since 2002 when the highest new movie “Insomnia” opened in 3rd place with $20 million (3-day). The last time the #1 new movie over Memorial Day weekend was lower was WAY BACK IN 1995 when “Casper” was the new movie that opened at #1 with $16 million (3-day) and $22 million (4-day). The opening weekend box office for “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” was lower than the “A Quiet Place Part 2” opening weekend on Memorial Day weekend 2021 when the pandemic was keeping people away from movie theaters, lower than “Tomorrowland” in 2015 which many considered a bomb and lower than some movies which opened in 2nd place over Memorial Day weekend over the past couple decades.
Some people were thinking that the other new opening “The Garfield Movie” might actually be the #1 movie of this past weekend. “The Garfield Movie” ended up as #2 with $24 million (3-day) and a little over $31 million (4-day) which is approx. what it was predicted to make. However, part of the reason the box office numbers were so close is that “The Garfield Movie” was on approx. 200 more screens. “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” was on approx. 3800 screens and “Garfield” was on approx. 4030 screens. The “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” per screen average was approx. $1000 per screen more than “Garfield”. If they had played on the same number of screens, “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” would have possibly made 2-3 million (although that would still be below predictions).
Total domestic box office managed to slip past $100 million making $101.7 (3-day) and $132 (4-day). That’s approx. 5.4% higher than the previous weekend but – other than 2020 and 2021 during the pandemic – the 3-day weekend total domestic box office was the lowest since 1999 for (1999 made $90 million 3-day and $142 million 4-day) and the 4-day holiday weekend box office was the lowest since 1998 ($124 million for 4-day).
Since there isn’t a major action movie or family movie coming out next week, the next hope for a blockbuster is “Bad Boys Ride or Die” on June 7 and then “Inside Out 2” on June 14th.
WORLDWIDE BOX OFFICE: “The Garfield Movie” also competed with “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” in other countries for the top spot this past (non-holiday) weekend. Although, “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” came out on top in most countries it was still below expectations making approx. $33 million in foreign countries for a approx. $66 million worldwide total. Fortunately, “The Garfield Movie” has been playing for a couple weeks in some other countries so it’s global total is almost at $100 million worldwide although it only made about $14 million in foreign countries this past weekend. In other worldwide box office news, “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” made enough to slip past $300 million in its worldwide total and the worldwide total for “IF” slipped past $100 million in its worldwide total.
UNION NEWS: You could say that no news is good news for the union negotiations. This week the unions continued their area standards agreements that started last week. They also scheduled the restart of their basic agreement talks for NEXT Monday June 3 so I guess they’re planning on finishing the other talks by the end of this week.
CANNES: The Cannes film festival concluded last week and the biggest surprise was the best actress award which was split between all 4 women who starred in “Emilia Perez”: Adriana Paz, Zoe Saldaña, Karla Sofía Gascón, andSelena Gomez. The night’s biggest prize, the Palme d’Or, went to “Anora”. The best actor award went to Jesse Plemons for “Kinds Of Kindness”.
OTHER NEWS: Although the summer movie season just started, the movie industry already seems to be looking at the AFTER SUMMER box office. The NEW FULL trailer for “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” (out in September), the new trailer for the animated “Transformers One” (out in September) and the new trailer for “Wicked” (out in December) were recently released, The new trailer for “Wolfs (out in September) is supposedly going to be released tomorrow (Tues May 29). Also, the NEW FULL trailer “Joker Folie a Deux” (out in October) and “Moana 2” (out in November) are rumored to be coming out soon.
LITTLE BIT OF HUMOR:
I must admit I’ve done that quite a few times while watching an old movie on cable TV. Just like in a movie theater, you can’t rewind regular cable TV so I have to find the movie on a streaming site to re-watch it.
LOS ANGELES FILM REVIEW 