Nobody is dancing with Darwin at the domestic box office this weekend, as the summer’s woes continue with both Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and The Garfield Movie underperforming in their respective debuts. Furiosa failed to crack the $30 million mark in its first three days of release. The big-budget prequel to 2015’s landmark Mad Max: Fury Road grossed $25 million in its opening weekend, and is eyeing around $32 million across the four-day extended Memorial Day holiday period. By comparison, Fury Road grossed $45 million in its opening weekend, on its way to a $370 million lifetime global haul.
They’re going to be talking about this one for a while because nothing could’ve indicated a fate this dire for Furiosa. Fury Road has only grown in relevance in the last several years; Chris Hemsworth and Anya Taylor-Joy are well-regarded and appealing stars; and the reviews have been excellent. The movie premiered at the recently concluded Cannes Film Festival to an encouraging response and currently sits at a “fresh” 89% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. Furiosa also earned a B+ CinemaScore from opening day audiences and has a 91% audience score on RT.
So, what gives? The common consensus is that audiences simply aren’t interested in prequels anymore, with the equally underwhelming Solo: A Star Wars Story and Lightyear being cited as examples. This is, after all, the lowest Memorial Day number-one opening since 1995’s Casper. By comparison, The Little Mermaid made nearly $120 million in its Memorial Day debut last year, while 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick opened to $160 million during the same period.
The Memorial Day Weekend Is Usually an Incredibly Lucrative Period at the Box Office
Furiosa found itself in a close race for the number one spot with The Garfield Movie, which debuted overseas a couple of weeks ago and is also eyeing around $32 million across the extended weekend. Featuring the kid-friendly Chris Pratt as the voice of the titular cat, the movie came nowhere close to matching the success of the star’s last animated offering, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which grossed over $145 million in its domestic debut last year. The Garfield Movie clawed into the target audience for last week’s IF, which dropped to number three with $16 million this weekend. Written and directed by John Krasinski, the star-studded live-action animated film is eying $20 million across the extended weekend, which should take its running domestic total to a so-so $63 million.
The fourth spot went to 20th Century Studios’ Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, which has quietly been delivering the goods during this difficult period. The film grossed $13 million across its third three-day weekend, with four-day projections currently in the $17 million range. This should take the film’s running domestic total to $125 million by Monday. The top five was rounded out by Universal’s The Fall Guy, which also debuted on digital platforms this week in the middle of its disappointing box office run. The action-comedy, starring Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, is projected to add $7 million across the extended weekend, taking its domestic total to $73 million.
via Collider