Weekend estimates for the Memorial Day weekend box office are in, and things are looking, well, interesting.X-Men: Apocalypseis unexpectedly topping the weekend with an estimated $65 million through Sunday, and while that’s on pace to top out at between $75 million and $80 million for the weekend—by no means a terrible performance—it’s behind the opening grosses forX-Men: Days of Future Past, which landed on Memorial Day weekend in 2014, and below earlier suggestions that peggedApocalypse’s opening as high as $100 million. While these numbers aren’t disastrous by any means,Apocalypsedoes come in at the lower end of opening weekends for the franchise as a whole, topping only the openings of 2000’sX-Men, the soft rebootX-Men: First Class, and 2013’sThe Wolverine.
Reviews forApocalypsehave not been incredibly kind, which may have something to do with the so-so opening weekend here. Or perhaps audiences are already starting to feel something of a superhero movie fatigue this year given that the season started way back in February withDeadpool—which opened to an astounding $132 million—and continued with the massive-in-scope blockbustersBatman v Superman: Dawn of Justicein March andCaptain America: Civil Warin April. Indeed, while we haven’t even hit June yet, we’ve already seen some of the biggest films of the entire year, andApocalypsecame in at the tail end here. Perhaps folks felt like they didn’t need to rush out to see another superhero smackdown so soon after these other epics?
Whatever the case,Apocalypse’s performance is not franchise-ending by any means, and 20th Century Fox has a bevy ofspinoffsandX-Men-centric filmsin the works, so we haven’t seen the last of the mutants. But it will be interesting to see howApocalypsefares in the weeks to come. One more promising bit of news for Fox: the film is performing extremely well overseas, with its international total standing at $115 million for a worldwide gross of $180.4 million at the moment.
Whatisa disaster is Disney’s sequelAlice Through the Looking Glass. The follow-up toTim Burton’s 2010 box office smashAlice in Wonderlandis a bona fide bomb, netting an estimated $28.1 million so far for a 4-day total of around $35 million—a 70% drop fromAlice in Wonderland’s opening weekend. The $170 million film had been expected to open around $55 million, but poor reviews coupled with a six year lag since the first film anda seriously bad week forJohnny Deppresulted in a low turnout, and now it may top out at $80 million overall compared to the $334 million domestic total of the first movie. The sequel is looking to fare even worse than last year’s Memorial Day releaseTomorrowland, which was a disappointment at $42 million.
But whileAliceis a sinking ship, Disney is in fine shape otherwise. The studio is about to pass $4 billion worldwide in record time thanks to the spectacular performance ofCivil War(the year’s highest grossing film),Zootopia, andThe Jungle Book, the latter of which is showing incredibly strong legs, landing in the #6 spot for the weekend in its seventh week in release. The live-action/CG hybrid has amassed an astounding $880 million worldwide so far, and when coupled with the $1.108 billion and $992 million worldwide totals ofCivil WarandZootopia, respectively, the sting ofAlice Through the Looking Glasshurts alittleless. Still hurts though.
Take a look at the full Top 10 estimates for the weekend below:
X-Men: Apocalypse
$65,000,000
Alice Through the Looking Glass
$28,112,000
The Angry Birds Movie
$18,700,000
$66,353,309
Captain America: Civil War
$15,125,000
$372,610,948
Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising
$9,100,000
$38,336,580
The Jungle Book
$6,967,000
$338,478,809
The Nice Guys
$6,370,000
$21,733,672
Money Monster
$4,250,000
$33,902,226
Love & Friendship
$2,496,000
$3,489,548
$335,874,645
