Disney’s live action adaptation of “The Little Mermaid” is set to arrive in time for the Memorial Day holiday weekend and the earliest box-office projections for the film are now in.
Box-Office Pro indicates that at this point, just under four weeks out, the film is currently on track for an opening three-day weekend of $70-90 million.
That would see it have the sixth biggest opening weekend of Disney’s live-action re-imaginings – just above “Maleficent” at $69 million and just below “Aladdin” at $91.5 million.
As the site indicates, that’s a long way from the records for Disney reimaginings such as “The Lion King” which debuted with $192 million and “Beauty and the Beast” which began with $175 million.
The film received some mixed reception towards its early teaser trailers and the outlet indicates social sentiment and trailer footprints are down as compared to “Aladdin”.
Whilst it may have kicked off Disney’s 1990s renaissance, the original animated film was not the box office powerhouse that “Beauty and the Beast,” “Aladdin” and “The Lion King” were – scoring a gross of $211 million worldwide (the others snagged $443M, $504M and $968M respectively).
The long holiday opening weekend and minimal competition however should help it and if reviews are positive it could have a long run.
