Halle Bailey played Ariel in Disney’s “The Little Mermaid.”
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Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” grossed nearly $96 million in its first three days in North America. That opening matched 2019’s $91 million “Aladdin,” which has grossed more than $1 billion worldwide.
However, that’s no guarantee that the company’s latest live-action remake will be as successful. This movie will sink or swim with word of mouth.
Audience buzz has become an increasingly important factor in box office success in the wake of the pandemic. With so many entertainment options, even franchises struggle to attract moviegoers. Those who don’t go to the movie on opening weekend may be lured to the theater by the positive chatter, which helps boost the film’s overall box office.
Disney has seen firsthand what happens when audiences don’t connect with the title. The studio is known for its animated content, and its two most recent releases, “Light Years” and “Oddworld,” were poor box office hits. Neither film was well received by critics, and previous direct-to-Disney+ releases left consumers confused about where to watch them.
Meanwhile, Disney has carved out a solid theatrical business for its string of live-action remakes of classic cartoons, which have grossed nearly $9 billion worldwide since 2010.
The company’s success has inspired other studios to remake popular cartoons into live-action films. Universal Pictures and DreamWorks Animation are currently developing a live-action remake of their popular animated trilogy “How to Train Your Dragon.” The movie is set to be released on March 14, 2025.
Although there were two live-action adaptations of 101 Dalmatians in 1996 and 2000, Disney didn’t get serious about making these remakes until 2010’s Alice in Wonderland. The film was the first to gross more than $1 billion worldwide and sparked the production of nearly a dozen others, including: Maleficent, Cinderella, The Jungle Book and Dumbo elephant”.
There are many more on the way. Disney recently announced plans to bring Moana and Lilo and Stitch into the real world. With Disney already looking to develop new hits, BoxOffice.com principal analyst Sean Robbins believes it’s only a matter of time before the company develops recent hits like “Frozen” or even “Encanto.”
These adaptations have met with varying degrees of success in the past six months, with titles such as “The Lion King” and “Beauty and the Beast” each grossing more than $1 billion worldwide, and “Dumbo” and “Alice” among others. Through the Looking Glass grossed less than $350 million worldwide.
“Disney’s long-term game must include a plan beyond the big three of Lucasfilm, Marvel and Pixar,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore. remakes of some of their most iconic films featuring beloved characters to varying degrees of box office success.”
He added that The Little Mermaid’s opening should give Disney a “confidence boost” as it shows that its live-action strategy works.
Is it at the theater?
For many viewers, however, Disney’s distribution strategy has become muddled in the wake of the pandemic. Subscribers were able to watch a live-action “Lady and the Tramp” when the Disney+ streaming service first launched in late 2019, but most consumers have already come to expect these new adaptations to hit the big screen.
When the pandemic closed theaters, Disney was forced to move 2020’s “Mulan” to Disney+ for a $30 rental, followed by the simultaneous release of 2021’s “Cruella” in theaters and streaming.
The company won’t release another live-action remake until late 2022, when “Pinocchio,” starring Tom Hanks, lands on Disney+. According to Rotten Tomatoes, the film was widely panned by critics and audiences.
“Peter Pan and Wendy,” which arrived on Disney+ in late April, also received middling ratings from critics (62 percent fresh) and was overwhelmingly disgusted by audiences, who gave it an 11 percent rating.
With a few exceptions, audiences have embraced classic Disney animated remakes, often scoring higher on Rotten Tomatoes than critics.
“It’s clear from the 1990s animation revival that resonates again how successful Disney’s remakes have been,” Robbins said. effect.”
on the horizon
Box office experts will be watching The Little Mermaid’s second weekend in domestic theaters to get a sense of the film’s longevity at the box office.
For most movies, a 50% to 70% drop is the norm. The mainstay feature often sees box office ticket sales dip into that range after hitting sky-high opening weekend numbers. While these types of films can continue to show billion-dollar films in theaters, this metric can indicate whether word-of-mouth is bringing new audiences to theaters, or if interest is waning.
The live-action “Aladdin,” which also opened over Memorial Day weekend, dropped 53% from its first week to its second. Ticket sales continued to decline by 40% or less until August of that year.
Upcoming Disney Live-Action Remakes
- “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” – March 22, 2024
- “Mufasa: The Lion King” – July 5, 2024
- “Lilo and Stitch” – in development
- “Moana” – in development
- “Hercules” – in development
- “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” – in development
- “Robin Hood” – in development
- “The Aristocats” – in development
- “Sword in the Stone” – in development
- “Bambi” – in development
- ‘Cruella’ Sequel – In Development
- ‘The Jungle Book’ Sequel – In Development
If “The Little Mermaid” can mimic those declines and maintain the cultural zeitgeist through the summer, box office analysts expect the feature to sell domestically and eventually at the box office worldwide.
That might be difficult, as the film is about to compete head-to-head with Sony’s Spider-Verse: Into the Spider-Verse, which opens Friday, along with a handful of upcoming family-friendly films. Paramount’s “Transformers: Rise of the Beast” will be released on June 9, as will Disney and Pixar’s “Elements” and Warner Bros. The Flash will premiere on June 16, and Universal’s Ruby Gilman: A Teenage Kraken will open on June 30.
“Despite some backlash and lower box office returns for certain films, Disney’s coffers have shown how it continues to transcend and appeal to people of all ages,” Robbins said. “However, some see this at the expense of At the expense of original films. Ultimately, I think audiences want both. Fresh content and nostalgic material have their place.”
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC. NBCUniversal has Rotten Tomatoes.