Weekend Wrap-Up: Aladdin Earns $100 million Opening

May 28, 2019

Aladdin

It was a great weekend for Aladdin and an okay weekend for the box office as a whole. Aladdin made more over the three-day portion of the weekend than most predicted it would make over four days. Unfortunately, not all of the rest of the films were able to pull their weight. The overall box office still grew 23% from last weekend reaching $181 million, but it slipped when compared to last year. Granted, it fell less than $1 million or 0.5% when compared to the same weekend last year, which is such a small gap that it is practically a tie. Year-to-date, 2019 has pulled in $4.31 billion, which is 9.2% or $440 million lower than 2018’s running tally of $4.75 million and this number needs to improve over the coming weeks.

After Dumbo missed expectations, a lot of people thought the live-action Disney remakes were done. However, Aladdin proved that was not the case earning $91.50 million / $116.81 million during its opening weekend. Its reviews are not great, but it earned an A from CinemaScore, so the word-of-mouth should be an asset going forward. On the downside, the movie reportedly cost a lot to make, in the $175 million to $185 million range, so it will need long legs to break even in a timely fashion.

John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum was next with $24.59 million / $30.97 million over the weekend for a running tally of $107.61 million after 11 days of release. The film is already the highest grossing film in the franchise at the domestic box office and it will soon have more than the first two films earned combined. There was some talk that this would be the last film in the franchise, but that certainly won’t be the case now.

Avengers: Endgame pulled in $17.20 million / $22.06 million over the weekend for a total of $803.40 million after just over a month of release. The film became just the second film to get to $800 million domestically, but it took nearly 10 days longer than it took The Force Awakens to get to that milestone.

Aladdin turned out to be tougher competition than anticipated, which resulted in Pokémon: Detective Pikachu falling faster than predicted. That said, it still pulled in $13.42 million / $17.25 million over the weekend for a total of $120.07 million so far. The film will finish its domestic run with almost as much as it cost to make, while it is doing even better internationally.

Brightburn rounded out the top five with $7.85 million / $9.61 million during its opening weekend. The film earned good reviews, but only managed a C plus from CinemaScore. Granted, that’s better than many low-budget horror films manage. However, since film only cost $7 million to make, it won’t take long for it to fully pay for its production costs. If it can do similar business internationally, then it will break even early during its home market run.

Booksmart was a disappointment opening with $6.93 million / $8.70 million. The film has some of the best reviews of the year and even though it only managed a B plus from CinemaScore, it deserved to open better than this. Maybe it will develop a cult following on the home market.

There were two sophomore class films not in the top five. A Dog’s Journey landed in seventh place over the three-day weekend with $4.14 million and $5.45 million over four. The film has only managed $16.28 million after 11 days of release, while the original earned more than that during its opening weekend. The Sun is Also A Star fell much faster down 68% over the three-day weekend to just $807,000, while it was barely able to top $1 million including Monday with $1.05 million. Its running tally is just $4.54 million, which would have been a disappointing opening weekend.

Filed under: Weekend Wrap-up, Avengers: Endgame, Dumbo, Aladdin, John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum, Pokémon: Detective Pikachu, The Sun is Also a Star, A Dog’s Journey, Booksmart, BrightBurn, John Wick