Yeah, this weekends box office was a big o'l disappointment. While past Memorial Day frames have provided massive box office weekends we talk about for years to come, this year both of the high-profile releases underwhelmed (though one considerably more than the other) and the hold-overs all experienced steep drops. Let's get down to business, not to defeat the Huns, but to wade down the pile of anti-climax that consumed the box office this weekend
Just as the sun rises each morning, just as the tide always comes in and just as I always spend my Friday nights alone and crying while watching reruns of Alf, another X-Men movie has arrived. It's just another one of life's many inevitabilities. This time around, the Merry Mutants took on Apocalypse over the Memorial Day weekend that's delivered two of the three best opening weekends of the franchise. X-Men: Apocalypse was down considerably from past Memorial Day opening entries in the franchise, grossing only $65 million, a 28% decline from the opening of X-Men: Days Of Future Past and only 17% above the opening of X-Men: First Class from five years ago.
There was always gonna be a step down in the domestic box office of X-Men: Apocalypse compared to Days Of Future Past since that 2014 X-Men movie had the gimmick of merging the "old" and "new" X-Men cast for one big adventure. Still, Apocalypse could have held better if a number of factors hadn't worked against it. Mixed reviews certainly didn't help but neither did naming your movie after a bad guy who came off in the ads like Ronan The Accuser 2.0. The novelty of seeing younger versions of classic X-Men characters like Storm, Cyclops and Jean Grey also didn't help out much since A) they were rarely seen in the ads and B) they weren't developed enough in the original trilogy to make the concept of seeing their origins enticing.
If Apocalypse holds like X-Men: Days Of Future Past from here, it would make about $166.4 million domestically. However, Days Of Future Past didn't have an exceedingly large amount of competition to face in the first three weeks of June, whereas Apocalypse will have to grapple with projects like Ninja Turtles 2 and Finding Dory. If it holds more like the other X-Men movie that opened over Memorial Day weekend, X-Men: The Last Stand (boy, talk about fake advertising), it'd make about $146 million. Let's say it holds slightly better than that and makes somewhere between $150 and $155 million domestically. Hoo boy, better hope those international numbers come in strong mutants.
But the box office news for X-Men: Apocalypse looks positively rose-colored compared to what Alice Through The Looking Glass endured this weekend. Alice debuted to a shockingly low $28.1 million over the weekend, about 76% below the opening weekend of Alice In Wonderland 6 years ago. It's even below the opening weekend of director James Bobin's first Disney film The Muppets, and that one burned off demand two days earlier with a Wednesday launch. For Johnny Depp, this opening weekend ranks closer to Once Upon A Time In Mexico than it does to any of his biggest blockbusters.
There was zero demand for another Alice In Wonderland adventure six years later, especially since both its director (Tim Burton) and lead actor (Johnny Depp), who were two of the main draws of the original, have seen their stock considerably plummet in the years since its release. But a sequel with a marketing campaign that successfully depicted a compelling new plotline could have gotten audiences to fall down the rabbit hole again. Instead, commercials centered on zaniness, focusing on CGI characters like Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum and The Cheshire Cat as if they were as beloved with audiences as the Minions. Brief glimpses of bad guy Time were also confusing since they never made it clear what his evil plan was while glimpses of time travel only further muddled the waters. With the next three weeks bringing two new high-profile family films, it'd be seriusly shocking if Alice got past $75, or even $70, million domestically.
Newcomers weren't the only ones suffering at the box office this weekend. Holdovers across the board experienced unusually large weekend-to-weekend drops. In third place The Angry Birds Movie grossed $18.4 million, a 52% drop from last weekend, a waaaay bigger second-weekend decline than past animated family movies whose second weekends coincided with Memorial Day Weekend like Over The Hedge (which had a 30% drop) and Shrek Forever After (which had a 39% decline). Angry Birds has now grossed $66.1 million.
Captain America: Civil War had a much larger plummet than past MCU movies over the Memorial Day frame, losing 54% for a fourth weekend gross of only $15.1 million. One upside to its weekend, at least, was that this brought its domestic haul to $372.6 million, outgrossing Deadpool on Saturday to become the biggest motion picture of 2016. Look for this one to hit $400 million sometime in June.
Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising couldn't make up ground in its second weekend, losing 58% for a second weekend gross of $9.1 million and a ten-day haul of $38.3 million. It looks like Neighbors 2 will conclude its domestic gross just slightly above the $49 million opening weekend of the first Neighbors. The Jungle Book kept on rolling in sixth place this weekend, having one of the smaller dips of any of the releases this frame by losing only 36% for a seventh weekend gross of $6.9 million, taking its massive domestic cume to $338.47 million, taking it past Zootopia to become the third biggest movie of 2016. Meanwhile, The Nice Guys lost 43% for a second weekend gross of $6.3 million, bringing the ten-day haul of the $50 million action/comedy to a subpar $21.7 million.
In eighth place was Money Monster, grossing another $4.2 million (a 39% drop from last weekend), taking its domestic gross to $33.9 million. Love & Friendship (an Amazon Studios release distributed by Roadside Attractions) also entered the top ten for the first time this weekend, expanding to 493 theaters and coming in at ninth place with solid numbers, grossing $2.5 million over the weekend for a per-theater average of $5,070. Love & Friendship has now brought in $3.5 million domestically, and considering that it'll expand its theater count further into wide release next weekend, it looks like this one will handily beat out the 1994 film Barcelona to become the biggest movie ever at the domestic box office for director Whit Stillman.
Zootopia rounded out the top ten in its thirteenth weekend of release, taking in another $831,000 (a 50% decline from last weekend) to take its domestic gross to $335.8 million. Meanwhile, The Lobster grossed $725,092 after expanding its theater count to 116 locations, resulting in a per-theater-average of $6,251 and a total U.S. gross of $1.5 million.
Overall, the top 12 this weekend grossed $158.4 million, a 21% increase over this same weekend last year when San Andreas rocked the box office. In terms of recent Memorial Day frames, this years was middle of the road; the top 12 over the 2016 Memorial Day frame was below the grosses seen in 2014, 2013 and 2011 while being an increase over the numbers seen over the holiday weekend in 2012 and 2015.
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