It was a mixed bag at the North America box office during the long Memorial Day weekend. Fox’s X-Men: Apocalypse easily took the number one spot while Disney’s Alice Through the Looking Glass fell flat in second place. Overall, the holiday frame was up slightly over last year at this time when another Disney dud, Tomorrowland, opened softly in first place with $33 million. Numbers reported in this article are based on four-day estimates.
X-Men: Apocalypse earned an estimated $80 million from a wide 4,150-theater screen count. The ninth film in the long running franchise was slammed by the critics, which may have helped the Bryan Singer film open approximately 28% lower than the $110 million earned by 2014’s Days of Future Past and 40% lower than February’s Deadpool.
Another possible factor to Apocalypse’s lower-than-anticipated haul could simply be genre fatigue. After all, the $178 million production is the fourth superhero film to open within the past three months alone following Deadpool, Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice and Captain America: Civil War. If audiences are starting to get tired of superhero overload, they won’t be happy to hear that there are three more genre pics on the schedule for the remainder of 2016: next week’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sequel, the August release of Suicide Squad and Doctor Strange in November.
While the opening for Apocalypse points to a box office below $180 million, international markets appear to be picking up some of the financial slack. After two weeks of release, Professor X and his team have earned $185 million so far. Those numbers should see a healthy spike next weekend when the film opens in China.
Another week, another sequel no one was asking for outside the studio releasing it. Last week, it was Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising. This week, it’s Alice Through the Looking Glass. The James Bobin-directed follow up to the 2010 Tim Burton smash opened in 3,763 theaters Friday where it went on to earn a weak $34.1 million, a whopping 76% lower than its predecessor’s $116 million. Foreign numbers for the weekend totaled $65 million.
Bad reviews –and some newly surfaced news regarding star Johnny Depp’s personal life- did the film no favors with audiences, nor did a marketing campaign that seemed to offer nothing different from its predecessor. After several months of unbelievable good luck at the box office, Alice marks the first real bomb for Disney. Whatever money is lost on Looking Glass will undoubtedly be taken care of, and then some, when Finding Dory opens in a few weeks.
Last week’s champ The Angry Birds Movie swooped lower in its second round on 3,932 screens. Off 35%, the animated comedy earned an estimated $24.6 million over the holiday frame to bring its overall total to $72.2 million. The film might be able to crack the $100 million mark prior to the arrival of Finding Dory.
In fourth place was Disney/Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War with an estimated $19.7 million from 3,395 theaters. Down 40%, Cap and Iron Man have duked out a massive $377 million after one month of domestic release. An additional $730 million has been brought in from overseas.
Rounding out the top five with 47% erosion in business was Universal’s comedy Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising. The Seth Rogen comedy earned an estimated $11.4 million from 3,416 theaters to bring its total to $40.6 million. It looks like the sequel to the 2014 hit should finish with $60 million, which is what the original took in over its first five days.
The remainder of the top ten:
- The Jungle Book (Disney) $9.2 million (-16%); $341 million
- The Nice Guys (Warner) $8.1 million (-27%); $23.5 million
- Money Monster (Sony) $5.5 million (-21%); $35.2 million
- Love & Friendship (Roadside) $3.1 million; $4.1 million
- Zooptopia (Disney) $1.1 million (-33%); $336 million
Next weekend, Me Before You, Popstar and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows open.
