'Pirates of the Caribbean 5' Top Memorial Day Weekend Box Office as 'Baywatch' Struggles
by Brad Brevet
Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales led the way this Memorial Day weekend while Paramount's Baywatch struggled to match expectations. Meanwhile, Disney's Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 continues to deliver while the studio's Beauty and the Beast became only the eighth film to cross $500 million domestically. Overall, the weekend was down ~15% compared to Memorial Day weekend last year when both X-Men: Apocalypse and Alice Through the Looking Glass delivered underwhelming openings.
With an estimated $62 million for the three-day and $76.6 million for the four-day weekend, Disney's fifth installment in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise finished atop the holiday weekend box office. Additionally, the film brought in an estimated $208.4 million internationally, the 12th largest overseas opening of all-time, as it opened in virtually the entire overseas marketplace. This includes a $67.8 million debut in China and an industry record opening in Russia of an estimated $18.6 million. Additional international debuts include South Korea ($11.6m), France ($9.3m), Germany ($8.4m), Mexico ($6.9m), UK ($6.3m), Brazil ($5.6m), Italy ($5.5m), Australia ($4.4m), Spain ($4.4m), Indonesia ($4m), Taiwan ($3.6m), India ($3m) and Argentina ($3m).
It's also of note the opening of Dead Men Tell No Tales pushed Disney's domestic cume for 2017 over $1 billion on Friday. It's the second fastest a studio has reached the mark domestically, second only to Disney's record performance last year when the studio surpassed $1 billion in early May.
Additional demographic information for Dead Men Tell No Tales saw the film receive an "A-" CinemaScore from opening day audiences. Overall, the demographic split saw the audience play 53% male vs. 47% female of which 63% were over the age of 25 with 73% of all showings of the film playing in 2D.
As for the film's performance, while the domestic opening falls short of expectations and isn't exactly what you would expect or want for a film budgeted at $230 million, the film is largely a global play, which is where it succeeded. The China opening alone is the third largest ever for Disney and has already surpassed the entire run cumes for the third and fourth Pirates films. All told, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides currently stands as the only installment among the first four films in the franchise to not top $250 million domestically, let alone $300 million, and yet it delivered the largest overseas performance of the franchise, as the only installment to top $800 million internationally, $150 million more than Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. So while Dead Men Tell No Tales looks likely to become the lowest grossing domestic release of the franchise, it will be interesting to see just where it ends up globally.
Moving on, you have to go to third to find Paramount's Baywatch, which was topped by Disney's Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 in its fourth weekend of release. The R-rated comedy starring Dwayne Johnson delivered a meager $18.1 million for the three-day weekend and is expected to finish around $22 million for the four-day holiday weekend. The film received a "B+" CinemaScore from opening day audiences and played to an audience that was 48% male vs. 52% female with 55% of the overall audience coming in 25 years or older.
Given the film's weak domestic performance, heads will now turn to the international market where the film will open in 31 markets next weekend. This weekend it opened in just one international territory, that being Taiwan where it finished second with an estimated $873,000 from 82 locations.
Meanwhile, getting back to Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, the Marvel sequel delivered an estimated $19.89 million for the three-day and is expected to finish around $24 million for the four-day holiday. The film's domestic gross now tops $335 million while its international cume climbs over $450 million for a global cume totaling $783.3 million, surpassing the original Guardians of the Galaxy and becoming the fifth highest grossing worldwide release in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Fourth place belongs to Alien: Covenant, which dropped a massive 71% in its second weekend, delivering a mere $10.5 million for the three-day. This is the second largest second weekend drop for a film playing in over 3,700 theaters and considering the largest drop within that group is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2, which opened with over $169 million, it's hardly comparing apples-to-apples.
Rounding out the top five is WB's Everything, Everything, which dropped 47% in its second weekend, bringing in an estimated $6.18 million as its cume now stands at $21.5 million on a $10 million budget. Look for the film to finish around $7.5 million for the four-day holiday weekend.
Elsewhere, Disney's Beauty and the Beast brought in an estimated $1.56 million for the three-day and over $1.98 million for the four-day weekend as its domestic cume now tops $500 million, becoming only the eighth film all-time to reach that milestone.
Another milestone this weekend belongs to Universal's The Fate of the Furious, which became only the sixth film all-time to cross $1 billion at the international box office. Of the six, Universal can lay claim to three of them, here's the list:
- Avatar (Fox) - $2.027 billion
- Titanic (Par) - $1.528 billion
- Furious 7 (Uni) - $1.163 billion
- Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Disney) - $1.131 billion
- Jurassic World (Uni) - $1.019 billion
- The Fate of the Furious (Uni) - $1.001 billion
In limited release Abramorama's release of Long Strange Trip - The Untold Story of The Grateful Dead brought in an estimated $34,131 from two locations on the heels of an impressive event showing on Thursday night, which saw the film deliver $261,572 from 50 locations. Abramorama also released Restless Creature: Wendy Whelan this weekend, which brought in an estimated $21,127 from two theaters.
Next weekend sees the release of WB and DC's Wonder Woman into over 4,000 theaters, Fox's release of the animated feature Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie into ~3,300 locations and Lionsgate's release of Pantelion's moderate release of 3 Idiotas into ~325 theaters.
| May 26-28, 2017 Weekend |
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