The Little Mermaid's Third Weekend in Release: A Few Thoughts on the Gross

In its third weekend in domestic release The Little Mermaid took in another $23 million--raising its domestic total to $229 million.

For those still drawing a comparison between the film and 2019's Aladdin this means that, where it was edging ahead last week, seventeen days on it is running about 2 percent behind.

Perhaps noise rather than signal (the fluctuations are slight enough that it could be edging ahead of Aladdin again this time next week), I still expect it to finish well north of $300 million at the least (with the vicinity of $350 million still plausible).

Not all that had been hoped for (the more in as $300 million is not what it was in 2019), it is still a respectable gross by most measures--and any North American underperformance slight next to the film's real problem, which has been in the international markets.

Still, the movie's international gross is now up to $185 million. And of interest is the film's (relatively belated) debut in Japan this past weekend, where it took in $5 million. This is, of course, not a spectacular gross, but it is worth noting that Japanese grosses tend to be less front-loaded than those elsewhere. (Thus did The Super Mario Bros. Movie, a big hit in that country, open with under $14 million on the way to a gross of nearly six times as much at present.) And Disney movies have been known to explode there, with Frozen an outstanding example. (Back in 2014 Frozen opened with a little under $10 million--on the way to a final take of $249 million, or well over $300 million in today's terms, which proportionally made it a far bigger hit in Japan than it was even in the U.S..)

A Frozen-like performance would force a rethinking of much that has been said of the film's prospects.

Do I actually foresee anything of the kind for this film? Alas, no. Still, even with a surprisingly healthy gross in Japan (for instance, if it approached the $62 million The Lion King collected, or even the $100 million+ taken in by Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin) the film still might not break $700 million. But in getting to the break-even point on this colossal investment (which streaming cannot do alone, that's why all those streaming projects are getting canceled right and left) every little bit helps.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny: Three Weeks to Go--and the Box Office Forecasts Keep Falling

Last week Boxoffice Pro's range for the opening weekend of Indiana Jones 5 was in the $81-$111 million range. This went along with an expectation of a final domestic box office gross of $225-$380 million.

This week Boxoffice Pro's prediction is an opening weekend in the $76-$105 million range--with a commensurately lowered long-range forecast of $211-$359 million.

Relatively speaking the drop is minor--some $5 million or so on the opening weekend, $15-$20 million over the longer run (or 5-7 percent of what may seem very large totals). But it is a movement in the wrong direction from the standpoint of the backers--and a sign of perhaps worse to come, when what was predicted was already bad enough.

As I put it last week, the $1 billion global gross was already a declining possibility (fading for it as they previously faded for those other Disney releases this summer, Guardians of the Galaxy 3 and The Little Mermaid); $700 million a middle-of-the-range performance that would leave it the lowest-performing film in its series by a long way in real terms; and the possibility of Solo-like collapse, which was on my mind from the start of my thinking about this movie's chances back in April, an ever-rising prospect.

Does Disney have any plan whatsoever for salvaging the situation? As I have remarked previously, the Cannes premiere, the early reviews and spoiler leaks, have hurt the film's chances, while limiting Disney's options for publicity in the remaining weeks. But if the studio has a surprise in mind . . . well, there just isn't much time left for them to spring it on us.

We will just have to see what the next three weeks bring--though I doubt very many are holding their breath.

The Flash: One Week to Go Before it Hits Theaters--as its Box Office Gross Forecast Keeps on Falling

Not too long ago the hype for The Flash was extreme in what was truly a worthy performance on the part of an entertainment press in full claqueur mode.

One may have wondered, however, whether the public was actually responding to all of the claquing on the movie's behalf.

The early box office tracking suggested that they did not. Still, the $280-$375 million Boxoffice Pro predicted as the film's final gross back in the middle of May, while not earth-shattering, at least looked respectable by the standards of a DC Extended Universe (DCEU) "burning off its final episodes."

And things could get better. After all, the critics might get behind the film, and help push it back on the road to box office glory.

Alas, things didn't get better, the projection slipping pretty quickly in the following weeks, and, in contrast with what might have been expected from the breathless hype of earlier, the critics not coming to the movie's rescue. Getting their say in recent days the Rotten Tomatoes score for the film stands at 72 percent--not exactly an overwhelming vote of confidence from those folks paid to "rate movies from good to excellent," with "good" what the critics rate movies when they don't like them.

Perhaps unsurprisingly the Boxoffice Pro forecast made one week before the film's release, with the range of the film's overall run now down to $176-$282 million, works out to the floor and ceiling for the film's run in North America alone having fallen by $100 million in a mere three weeks, over a quarter of the take discussed just three weeks ago that some already regarded as a disappointment.

Putting this into terms of other movies, the film's doing well would, far from making it the crowning glory of the DCEU and the Epoch of Superhero Films in which we live that the hype promised, have it doing just a little bit better than Ant-Man 2 (about $260 million in April 2023 dollars), while at the low end its backers would be left wishing it only did as well as Ant-Man 3 (its $214 million standing about a fifth higher than the floor now predicted for the movie).

Going by what is said about the film itself, rather than the tracking data, I expect that the movie will find a fan base--relatively hardcore superhero movie fans responsive to the "trippy" premise, the brisk and action-packed narrative, the nostalgic button-pushing. But the general audience will be less impressed, finding it to be rather than the greatest of superhero films, at best an interesting one, or just passable, or maybe annoying and wearying, as the case might be--the kind of situation that leaves a movie a commercial disappointment, even as it, perhaps, wins a cult following over time.

Die Hard, Rambo 5, Indiana Jones 5

Those looking for analogies between Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and other films have in recent months turned time and again to Top Gun 2, picturing this fellow '80s retread explode at the box office and dominate the summer season the Tom Cruise film did in 2022.

Yet if one is looking for an '80s analogy it may be that Top Gun 2 is a less appropriate point of comparison than other major '80s action films others generally choose not to bring up--most obviously Die Hard 5 (A Good Day to Die Hard) and Rambo 5 (Rambo: Last Blood).

Why them? Like Indiana Jones Rambo and Die Hard were among the glories of '80s-era Hollywood action film-making--with Rambo: First Blood, Part II, far and away the biggest of the distinctly "'80s" action movies (action and not action-comedy, bullet-riddled, and very R-rated), and a major cultural moment, with Die Hard perhaps the most celebrated of them--launching a decade-long frenzy of imitation that produced considerable successes in its own right (not least the Steven Seagal career-high film Under Siege, Speed, and Harrison Ford's own Air Force One).

Also like Rambo and Die Hard the third film in the franchise (1989's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) was followed by a long pause in which further continuations generally remained in "development hell," with the fourth film coming only in the late '00s period of '80s nostalgia, and specifically the dozen months or so between the summers of 2007 and 2008 (with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull hitting theaters a year after Live Free or Die Hard, and mere months after Rambo). Like those others failing to generate enormous enthusiasm for further follow-up, the next movie came only years later.

In the cases of Die Hard and Rambo those films ended the franchise on the sourest of notes both commercially and critically. (I remember a critic joking that 2013's Die Hard 5 must have been assembled by a robot because no human would have put the thing in theaters--while watching 2019's Rambo 5 left Rambo's own creator David Morrell saying that he "felt degraded and dehumanized after I left the theater," and that he "was less a human being for having seen it.")

Negative as the reviews for Indiana Jones 5 have been I expect no reactions as harsh as those. (Certainly no critic I have read yet claimed to have deprived of their humanity by seeing the movie!) But the reviews have indeed been negative--enough so to give an impression of a franchise having fallen a long way from its glory days--and it is plausible indeed that in the end Indiana Jones 5 will do no more to keep its (far more expensive) franchise going than Die Hard 5 and Rambo 5 did their own.

The Live-Action Movies of the Year Thus Far and the Prospect of the Billion-Dollar Gross

Not long ago one might have thought that Guardians of the Galaxy 3, Fast X and The Little Mermaid were all contenders for the glory of a $1 billion gross at the worldwide box office--and where the upcoming releases of June are concerned, Elemental, The Flash and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny too.

I suspected, however, that none of these movies, or any other live-action movie of the year, might make that mark.

Right now Guardians of the Galaxy 3, already out for a solid month, has yet to make $800 million, and that without much further to go. (My guess is that it will end up somewhere in the vicinity of $825 million.)

Fast X, for the moment, does not seem likely to do better (with $900 million, at least, out of reach).

Meanwhile, if The Little Mermaid is doing decently domestically (on its way to $300-$350 million), its poor international performance makes any such gross elusive (with my guess a final worldwide take in the $600 million range).

At the same time the prospects for Elemental, The Flash and Indiana Jones have deteriorated.

My guess is that, based on what we now hear, Elemental is unlikely to cross the half-billion dollar mark; The Flash, as its domestic box office prospects especially sink, lucky indeed to make $700 million; and Indiana Jones, which I had thought more likely than not to fall short of the $1 billion mark in April, looking like it will do ever-less than that, with a Solo-like collapse safely within the range of the most recent Boxoffice Pro report.

The result is that, barring some great surprise, not a single live-action movie of the first six months of 2023 will break the billion-dollar mark--while the second half of the year seems no more promising. The only movie I think may have a shot of bucking the trend is Aquaman 2--but I am more doubtful about that one all the time.

Consequently this first really "normal" year for the movies after the pandemic looks rather underwhelming. One may wonder if this does not reflect a permanent hit to theatergoing habits, and the reality that people are still catching COVID and suffering the ill effects. However, it seems to me that the main issue is the uninspiring product on offer, as we are reminded when we look beyond the live-action films. People really wanted to see The Super Mario Bros. Movie apparently, and the result is that, even coming out well before summer, it blew past the $1 billion mark (and now has $1.3 billion in the till)--in the process becoming the fourth movie to do so in a year and a half (following Spider-Man: No Way Home, Top Gun 2 and Avatar 2). If the summer movie slate excited the public as much the moviegoers would have come. Instead it didn't--a reminder of how, in the case of most of these films, the studios have gone on trying to wring every last penny out of the same old franchises far past the point of diminishing returns, while, as the international situation decays, China's market becomes less accessible to Hollywood again.

Aquaman 2, China and the Film's Chances of a $1 Billion Gross

Aquaman is, to date, the biggest money-maker the DCEU ever had--and its only current-dollar billion-dollar hit. However, the movie was only a "respectable" grosser at home by first-rank superhero movie standards (its $335 million rather less than what Wonder Woman made the year before). What really put it over the top was its especially strong overseas gross--accounting for some 71 percent of its worldwide income (also a franchise high).

The result is that, all other things being equal, one might hope for a strong performance on the part of the sequel, with even a significant drop in the real-terms gross from the original's ($1.15 billion when it came out in December 2018, more like $1.4 billion in 2023 dollars) allowing it to be the kind of $1 billion hit so elusive for Hollywood's live-action films these days.

Alas, all things are not equal, with one factor well worth remembering that China was especially important in making the movie such a success. (Without its $292 million gross there the movie would have ended its run with just $850 million.)

With China so important--accounting for a quarter of the worldwide box office gross--should Aquaman 2 suffer the way many more recent American releases have in China the film could already be expected to do significantly less well. (Should, for example, the film do only half the business in China that its predecessor did--which would be a lot better than, say, the Ant-Man sequel managed--that would in today's terms mean almost $200 million off the top.) Meanwhile the movie faces other, significant, headwinds:

* The five year wait since the last film--and the slight turnout of DCEU films in those five years, with all that meant for sustaining interest in, or even awareness of, the brand.

* The end of the DCEU as we know it, undermining any attempt to make Aquaman 2 "an event."

* Bad (frankly, very bad) buzz about the film itself.

It may also be that The Flash, if indeed poorly received after the breathless hype (as seems possible), may not be helpful to the next DCEU release.

The result is that, if Aquaman 2 is, apart from Guardians of the Galaxy 3 (which has missed its chance), and Indiana Jones 5 (the prospects of which are fading), the most likely contender for a $1 billion gross of any live-action movie coming out this year, I can easily picture it too falling short of the mark.

China's Importance for a $1 Billion Gross: The Case of 2019

In 2019 nine Hollywood movies' grosses broke the $1 billion barrier in worldwide release.

Three of those movies--Spider-Man: Far From Home, Captain Marvel, Aladdin--would not have crossed the $1 billion mark without Chinese revenue. Meanwhile others that would have saw their bottom lines a good deal healthier as a result of a China release--with Avengers: Endgame, if breaking the $2 billion barrier without China, still adding another $600 million to its worldwide gross because it came out there, as The Lion King and Frozen II each added a welcome $100 million+ to their worldwide gross thanks to their China release. (Only for Star Wars Episode IX, Toy Story 4, and Joker was China unimportant.)

All this is something well worth remembering when we consider the lackluster grosses of Hollywood's films this year in light of China's increasing closure to American films (with, we are told, Chinese authorities undermining American releases by delaying approval so as to make timely physical distribution of the films, and satisfactory promotional campaigns, nearly unworkable).

The resulting, declining prospect of making money in China, barring some improvement in the market situation, is going to be yet another source of downward pressure on Hollywood's income--and, if such a thing is possible, another driver of change in how it does business.

Hollywood's Shaky Film Grosses: The China Factor

In considering the underperformance of recent Hollywood titles my emphasis has tended to be on the domestic market, but I have also noted again and again the fact that with films such as Ant-Man 3 and The Little Mermaid the overseas underperformance has been markedly worse. This was the reason why Ant-Man 3 failed to break a half billion dollars; why it seems to me likely at the time of writing that The Little Mermaid will not make much more than $600 million.

Of course, assessing the global market is a more complex matter than considering just one market. Still, it is the case that some markets are more important than others, with China of special consequence--and identifiable as a growing problem area for Hollywood. The increasingly deep relationship between the U.S. film industry and its Chinese counterpart evident in the 2010s has, far from continuing to progress, degenerated--right along with relations between their respective governments, and the broader disruption of their economic connections.

A glance at the performance of the two aforementioned films makes it clear that while trouble in China is not the whole story, it is a big part of it.

Ant-Man 3, to merely match its predecessor in real, inflation-adjusted terms, needed to make $740 million or so globally, with some $480 million of that expected to come in from overseas. Instead it made about $260 million overseas--a $200 million+ shortfall of about 45 percent. As it happens, the shortfall in China, which was disproportionate, accounts for a very big chunk of this. Where Ant-Man 2, in line with Marvel's popularity in China, took in $121 million in that market in 2018, which is equal to $145 million in February 2023 dollars, Ant-Man 3 made a mere $39 million in China--a 73 percent drop, that accounts for almost half ($105 million) the drop in overseas box office revenue relative to the predecessor by itself.

So does it also go with The Little Mermaid in a China long receptive not only to Marvel but to live-action adaptations of Disney's animated classics as well. In 2016 The Jungle Book was an especially strong performer, taking in $150 million there (which is more like $190 million today), while The Lion King also took in $120 million in 2019. Not in the same class, Beauty and the Beast took in $85 million, and even the disappointing Aladdin still picked up $53 million in 2019 (equal to more like $63 million).

By contrast The Little Mermaid has grossed under $4 million in ten days of release, making its even breaking into the double-digits a long shot.

For all that, some Hollywood movies, Disney films included, still do fairly well in China. Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy 3's $84 million gross in China at present, if down from what Guardians of the Galaxy 2 made in that country ($100 million in 2017), is a 32 percent real-terms drop--not much different from what Guardians seems likely to end up with at home, frankly (its likely $340 million final gross itself almost a third down from the $480 million+ that its 2017 domestic gross would be in today's dollars). Still, the trend can only be worrisome for Disney--and one should not forget, all the other Hollywood studios that have so come to count on China.

It should also worry even those who (understandably) have no interest in the economics of filmmaking whatsoever--because of what it says about the deterioration of international relations and the functioning of the global economy in an increasingly conflict-ridden, and dangerous, world.

Guardians of the Galaxy 3's Fifth Weekend Fast X's Third Weekend at the Box Office (Weekend Numbers, Long-Term Global Prediction)

This past weekend Guardians of the Galaxy 3 took in some $10 million domestically, bringing its total to $322 million. Meanwhile, with the film's global take already up to $780 million the movie seems all but certain to break the $800 million barrier, with its finishing up somewhere in the vicinity of $825 million still likely. The sole (slight) change in my expectations as compared with those of a few weeks ago is that a little less of the money will come from abroad and a little more domestically (circa $340 million rather than $330 million given the current rates of week-to-week decline).

Fast X's Third Weekend at the Box Office (Weekend Numbers, Long-Term Global Prediction)

This past weekend Fast X took in another $9 million at the box office--not a very impressive take for a would-be blockbuster like this in its third weekend. Given the observed rate of decline from week-to-week (as well as weekend-to-weekend) of about 60 percent I expect the movie to finish at (or even slightly below) the low end of the Boxoffice Pro projections seen before its release, with some $150-$160 million banked domestically. Of course the movie is doing far better abroad, but even should it do as well as any of its predecessors internationally (taking in 82 percent of its gross overseas) it still cannot be expected to reach $900 million--with the possibility of its sputtering out even before the $800 million mark not out of the question.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (Revising the Box Office Prediction in Light of New Information)

Last week I reviewed my early April box office prediction for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny--in which I estimated the movie would be more likely to make between $750 million and $1 billion than go over the $1 billion mark, and raised the specter of a Solo-like collapse--in light of Boxoffice Pro's forecast.

In that review I noted Boxoffice Pro's new numbers, and considered some of their possible implications, not least dimming prospects for the high ($1 billion+) gross, and the increasing plausibility of the Solo-like scenario, but did not do much more than that. So here I am going to offer a somewhat fuller update.

For the purposes of this post let us take Boxoffice Pro's figures as a starting point--namely the $225-$380 million domestic range--and consider the worst and best global grosses in relation to those. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull made about 60 percent of its money overseas, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade almost as much, so this seems to me a plausible ceiling. Meanwhile Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom made a mere 46 percent of its money internationally, suggesting it as a plausible floor.

If we assume that the movie makes the top of the domestic range the magazine calculated, and 1.5 times as much more globally, we end up with something in the range of $950 million--not much under $1 billion, close enough in fact as to put the $1 billion figure within a reasonably small margin of error. By contrast, if the movie makes $225 million domestically, and relative to that does no better than Temple of Doom overseas, the movie would take in a mere $415 million or so worldwide.

The result is that, on the basis of our having more information, I now suggest $400 million-$1 billion as the relevant range of the film's gross for prediction now--with, where $1-$1.25 billion had seemed far from implausible, and a Solo-like collapse (which anything under $500 million could safely be counted as) had seemed an outside possibility, the two have switched places.*

Again we are talking about a colossal margin, making the difference between a movie that would be respectable if not stellar, and (maybe) bring in a decent profit by the time all is said and done (with home entertainment, etc., topping off the theatrical rentals), and a Solo-caliber disaster. Splitting the difference between the top and bottom of the range we end up with $700 million--while also splitting the difference between decent money-maker and catastrophe. (Disney-Lucasfilm might be able to break even on the film on a $700 million gross, but not do much better than that.)

Do I think the movie more likely to end up over that $700 million line, or below it? My earlier prediction would suggest an expectation of its going over the line (as, again, $750 million-$1 billion was the range I had in mind as the most likely outcome two months ago, and this remains even inside the new range). Still, the backers erred terribly with their decision to premiere the film at Cannes, undermining their own release with the bad reviews, the spoilers that many will find not to their liking, and the diminution of options for getting the public more excited about the film, as a result of which it is easier to picture the situation getting worse than better. The result is that right now the odds of the movie going over or ending up under the line strike me as even--though that could very easily change in the nearly four weeks remaining between now and the film's release.

* Adjusted for inflation Solo could be said to have grossed $474 million in contemporary dollars (rather more than the worst-case scenario discussed here).

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse: The Opening Weekend Box Office and the Outlook for the Long-Term Domestic and Worldwide Gross

Earlier this year I wondered if Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse might not outperform every other Marvel superhero movie, or even every other superhero movie, coming out this year.

Three days into its release it its outperforming Guardians of the Galaxy 3 domestically, with, much closer to the high than the low end of Boxoffice Pro's projection ($95-$130 million), over $120 million grossed.

Will the movie maintain its lead over Star-Lord and friends? Certainly its opening, as not just a sequel but perhaps the most anticipated movie of the summer, suggests front-loading. However, the enthusiasm seems real enough, and people seem to be liking what they were seeing--with 96 percent scores from both the "verified" and "all" audiences on Rotten Tomatoes (matched by ratings almost as good from the critics, both "all" and "top" critics giving it a 95 percent rating). The result is that the movie seems to me to still have a fair chance of besting Guardians of the Galaxy 3 (with its gross now standing at $322 million), and in the process just about every superhero movie coming out this year except, possibly, Aquaman 2 (though Across the Spider-Verse besting it too seems within the realm of possibility should the film prove the disappointment some fear).

Still, the margins are for the time being slender enough that the film's hold over the next two weeks will be critical in determining that outcome.

Internationally the debut has been less impressive--the film scoring $88 million so far--which is respectable, but not quite the same level of success. (Indeed, Across the Spider-Verse made a third less in its debut in China than its predecessor did--in current dollars.) It may be too soon to claim too much on that basis, but it may be that enthusiasm for the animated Spiderman feature film franchise did not explode globally the way it has at home. The result is that the film's performance will not hit the highs globally that it does at home, with all that implies for the film's final gross, and its ultimate significance from the standpoint of Hollywood fashion.

Is The Little Mermaid Playing Like Ant-Man 3?

Ant-Man 3 came out on a four-day holiday weekend, during which it posted respectable numbers, but then went on to an underwhelming gross relative even to the immediately preceding films. There were many dimensions to this--like the film's extremely weak legs (which had it taking in more than half its domestic gross in just those first four days). However, The Little Mermaid, domestically at least, if not opening much differently (it had a $119 million gross, actually less than Ant-Man 3's $120 million), seems bound to make much more money than Ant-Man 3 did, helped by rather stronger legs (the decline in the gross from the first Friday-to-Sunday weekend period to the second just 57 percent, as against Ant-Man 3's 70 percent, bringing its ten-day cume to $186 million, as against Ant-Man's $167 million at the same point).

However, what I am noticing is how the film's domestic underperformance (relatively slight--mainly an underperformance by the super-high standards of Disney's most successful products) is proving much less relevant than the film's international underperformance. Adjusting the numbers for inflation Ant-Man 3's domestic gross was a sixth less than what Ant-Man 2 made, but its international gross was little more than half what its predecessor took in when considered in those terms. Where the domestic gross is concerned The Little Mermaid could easily end up about a sixth down domestically if one treats Aladdin as its most meaningful predecessor--while being down far worse if the film's income in international release is anything to go by. With The Little Mermaid likely to finish up with $300-$350 million domestically, one would have, to go by the performance of its predecessors, taken in $560-$650 million abroad. By contrast the movie would seem likely to finish up with $225-$260 million or so globally--a drop of between 54 and 65 percent from what might have been hoped for just on the basis of this movie's earnings, and worse when one adjusts for inflation (from 68 to 72 percent in that case). Those chewing over the film's success, or failure, as they see it, should attend to that fact.

The Little Mermaid: The Opening Weekend Box Office and the Outlook for the Long-Term Gross

In its second weekend in release Disney's live-action remake of The Little Mermaid grossed over $40 million domestically, raising its total to $186 million--actually a bit better than the Boxoffice Pro folks anticipated this weekend. (They had in mind a figure of $179 million.)

The result is that, given its strong parallel with preceding Disney films, among them the similarly Memorial Day weekend-released Aladdin (which similarly grossed $90 million+ in its first Friday-to-Sunday period, $40 million+ in its second, and $186 million in its first ten days), I still expect it to, if fading a little faster (with a weekend-to-weekend drop of 57 percent, as against Aladdin's 53 percent), break $300 million fairly easily, with a domestic gross north of $350 million not necessarily out of reach (and barring some collapse, not end up much lower than that in the worst case).

Of course, this may not be all that the film's backers and supporters hoped for. (Thanks to inflation Aladdin's $356 million in the summer of 2019 would be more like $420 million+ in the summer of 2023, so that even matching Aladdin would leave the gross one-sixth down relative to the other movie.) Still, it would be far from the disaster some are speaking of--if that was all that mattered. The international market generally delivered 65 percent+ of the global gross for Disney's big-budget live-action remakes of its animated classics in recent years--and the opening weekend raised real doubts about that. (It actually looked like it was going to be the other way around, the domestic market delivering close to two-thirds of the money.)

Has the film's second weekend in play changed that? The movie's overseas gross now stands at $140 million--a good deal less than what it has made at home, and working out to approximately 43 percent of the global total. This is actually about the same figure we had at the end of the first three days (when the movie made about $68 million of the $164 million then grossed, 42 percent of the total). Assuming the pattern continues I would expect The Little Mermaid to finish up with somewhere around $600 million globally on the basis of what we have seen so far, near the lower end of the $600-$700 million range predicted here last week.

Will the Bad Reviews Matter to the Prospects of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny?

What the critics say about movies does not always matter. Some movies do just fine with the critics against them--like The Super Mario Bros. Movie (this year's first and only billion-dollar grosser).

Is it possible that critical negativity will be similarly irrelevant in the case of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny?

I doubt that very much.

Why is that? I can think of three reasons.

1. Critical opinion matters more to adults, and especially older adults, than kids. And Indiana Jones 5 will be counting heavily on the older audience--rather more than a movie starring Mario and Luigi, which every Nintendo-playing kid will want to see even if it is supposed to be totally terrible, and make mom and dad take them.

2. No one expects critics to love a film like The Super Mario Bros. Movie, so that their dislike of the film would simply seem background noise. (Indeed, this may be why the critics were allowed to deviate from their usual function of rating movies "from good to excellent" in this case.) But they have been favorable to Indiana Jones in the past--and their not being favorable this time around matters, the more in as

3. Even those older Indiana Jones fans were likely skeptical about this one, given how many years had passed since the last movie (and how many more since the last really well-liked one) with all that means for "recapturing their magic," the sense that Indiana Jones 4 was both a disappointment and a close to the saga after which it should be left alone, an octogenarian Harrison Ford, a new director, new management at Lucasfilm, an amping up of the CGI (we all know how that affected the response to the later Star Wars films), and hints that the theme and tone would be a break with what had been attractive about the preceding films that might diminish the happy memory of them, among much, much else. It would have been helpful to have critics assuaging that skepticism--but instead their reviews make clear that they not only think it a lackluster film at best, but tell those who had such concerns that the movie is exactly what they were afraid it would be.

The result is that, yes, this is one where critical opinion matters--and is working against the movie rather than for it, with the consequences implicit in the Boxoffice Pro forecast for the film's opening weekend and full domestic runs. (Remember what happened the last time Phoebe Waller-Bridge played sidekick to an iconic Harrison Ford character? Well . . .)