In an opening weekend that was more dramatic than most films, Disney Mermaid ended up grossing $163.8 million worldwide, short of projections by about $20 million. Much of the discrepancy can be attributed to the soft global opening, which was around $68 million. But a couple of days after it was expected, the big-budget remake of the 1989 animated classic finally passed the $200 million mark at the worldwide box office.
Mermaid earned $130 million domestically and another $79 million in overseas territories for a total of $209 million worldwide. The film cost $250 million to produce (minus marketing), which means it is currently an ocean away from success. Mermaid grossed $38 million domestically on its opening day, meaning a catch of $125 million over the four-day extended weekend. But it ended up grossing $117 million in four days at the domestic box office. The film was expected to gross $80 million worldwide in its opening weekend, but fell short of that figure by about $12 million.
A big compliment over the weekend was Disney’s latest major live action remake. Aladdin, which brought a nearly identical opening weekend on the same frame in 2019. The film grossed over $350 million domestically and over $1 billion worldwide amid mixed reviews. Critical reception for Mermaid was also mixed, although it received an excellent A CinemaScore from the audience on its opening day. Collider Ross Bonime in his review, called it “one of the rare live action remakes that manages to capture that Disney magic.”
The original film was directed by John Musker And Ron Clements and grossed $211 million worldwide, a figure the remake would surpass today. For comparison, the original The Lion King earned over $750 million worldwide in its original run, and its remake grossed over $1.6 billion worldwide just a few years ago. This figure looks completely out of reach for Mermaidbut something close to AladdinA billion dollar global catch should be considered a major victory (although these low foreign earnings are worrisome).
Disney live-action remakes are successful
Disney veteran director Rob Marshall (Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Mary Poppins is back), Mermaid follows over a dozen remakes of classic Disney films. Mileage was, to put it mildly, unstable. Although some of these remakes did exceptionally well at the box office - four films, including Aladdin, Alice in Wonderland, The beauty and the BeastAnd The Lion King, have grossed over $1 billion worldwide - some of them flopped and some were only released to streaming. But given the enduring popularity of the source material, it makes sense for House of Mouse to allocate such a huge budget to Mermaid remake; the studio is understandably optimistic about him.
Rookie Starring Holly Bailey as the main character in the film also appears Melissa McCarthy like the villainous Ursula, Jonah Hauer-King, David Diggs, Aquafina, Javier Bardem, Jacob Tremblay, Noma Dumezweni, And Art Malik. You can watch interviews with Bailey and Hauer-King here and follow Collider for updates.
Source: Collider
My name is Wendy Thorne and I was born on October 1st, 1990. I grew up in Los Angeles, CA and currently reside in Brooklyn, NY. I work as a staff writer for a news website and have been authoring articles for Daily News Hack since 2020. The topics I mostly cover are entertainment news and celebrity gossip.
