BOX OFFICE: “Spider-Verse” should clear $113, “Mermaid” gathers another $40-45

Based on $16 million in previews and Friday’s numbers, which Box Office Pro notes add up to around $40 million, “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” is heading towards an impressive $113 million+ opening weekend, according to Deadline.com.

With the hype and the long wait since the 2018 first film in the trilogy added to ticket inflation, that adds up to triple the opening weekend take of “Into the Spider-Verse,” which pulled in a healthy $35 at the start of a long and lucrative run.

It seemed preordained to be a blockbuster, but not all the reviews were raptorous. Some of us had gripes about the inane story, the gimmickry and the visual aesthetics. But the fans were serviced, and that’s what counts.

“The Little Mermaid” opened Memorial Day weekend and pulled in $95 million and change over its first three days, scooping up another $23 on Memorial Day Monday. For its second weekend, the live-action remake of a Disney classic is chumming towards a $41 million+ take, and 50-60% falloff from its opening.

The only other wide opening new picture for the weekend is 20th Century Studios’ “The Boogeyman,” a polished and just-creepy-enough-for-the-bigscreen horror tale based on a Stephen King story that Disney had originally planned to ship straight to Hulu.

It’s doing modest business, with all the fangirls and boys amped up for “Spider-Verse,” but $11-13 million in the bank by Monday AM is nothing to sneeze at.

“Fast X” is fading, dropping to $9 million, behind “Guardians of the Galaxy” adding another $10.5. That long-in-the-tooth Marvel release is hitting the lose-lots-of-screens sag, and “Super Mario Bros.” may be finally tapping out, dropping out of the top five, earning $3.3 million or so, but at way over $560 million, all in.

“About My Father” is proving to have longer legs than the beer bust comedy, “The Machine,” edging it by a $2 million to $1.7/1.8 million margin on both films’ second weekends.

Gerard Butler’s “Kandahar” seriously underwhelmed. I guess nobody wants to see Gerry in Saudi Arabia pretending he’s in Afghanistan. It just opened, did little business and it losing a big chunk of its screens to barely make $750. It’ll be lucky to reach the $7 million mark before disappearing.

Nicole Holofcener’s “You Hurt My Feelings,” starring Julia Louis Dreyfus, might have made more noise in the fall. But it’s scraping by, another $700k or so. It won’t clear $10 million by the time it loses the last of its screens.

I’ll be updating this over the weekend as more figures come in.

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About Roger Moore

Movie Critic, formerly with McClatchy-Tribune News Service, Orlando Sentinel, published in Spin Magazine, The World and now published here, Orlando Magazine, Autoweek Magazine
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