This weekend, The Garfield Movie and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga were neck and neck at the box office, with Furiosa edging out Garfield by only $700,000.
A Close Race At A Disappointing Box Office
This weekend seemed prime to have a standout winner at the box office; but both The Garfield Movie and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga both underperformed. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga was tracking for $40 million, whereas The Garfield Movie was tracking for $50 million to $65 million. Both movies missed their targeted amounts by significant margins.
As per Box Office Mojo, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga was first with $25.5M. The movie has a reported budget of $168 million which doesn’t factor in marketing costs. In breaking down who saw the movie, it was primarily males seeing the movie; with a female lead, the movie surprisingly didn’t resonate with female audience members in the way I’m sure the studio was expecting.
The Mad Max franchise has also notoriously always had a hard time finding an audience. Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior ranked in seventh place on Memorial Day weekend in 1982. Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome earned a modest amount but lost out to Back To The Future. Even Mad Max: Fury Road lost box office footing to Pitch Perfect 2 and Tomorrowland. So while critics and fans seem to applaud the Mad Max movies, they never seem to find an audience.
At this point, it’s highly doubtful that the movie will make back its $168 million budget, but time will tell.
The Garfield Movie earned $24.7 million. Beating out Garfield: The Movie (2004) with its $21.7 million opening and Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties (2006) with its $7.2 million opening. Sony is also confidently stating that The Garfield Movie will beat Furiosa by the end of Monday, although it’s not like it’s an overly prestigious title given the huge drop in box office revenue.
Still, The Garfield Movie was made for $60 million. So unlike Furiosa, it’s undoubtedly going to make its money back; and with Sony’s family-friendly fare (i.e. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire) having a long shelf life at the box office, Sony seems convinced it’ll make its money back slowly but surely.
The Rest Of The Box Office
IF dropped from first to third, earning $16.1 million. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes dropped from second to fourth, earning $13.3 million. Finally, The Fall Guy dropped to fifth place with $5.9 million.
Next Week
Next week won’t have any new major releases, there are some new limited-release films, but none are likely to break the Top 5.
The box office should more or less look the same, albeit I expect The Garfield Movie to have longer legs and possibly take the number one spot next weekend.
As always we’ll find out next week!
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