The lesson for Universal Studios could not be more stark.

Twentieth Century (Disney) makes bank, yet again, with the middling, pointless and CGI-dominated tenth movie in the ever-rebooted/even-became-a-TV-series “Planet of the Apes” franchise. While “The Fall Guy,” a funny, well-cast but not quite all it could be action comedy based on a 40 year old TV series underperforms its way to red ink.

Universal needs to make a “Fall Guy” sequel for 2026, just to get its money’s worth out the idea and the investment. Audiences plainly only show up in droves for not just the familiar — Lee Majors and one of the ’80s Heathers starred in the TV series, after all — but the wearily over-familiar -+ sequels.

That’s what we can take away from the big Wed. “fan preview,” double the “Fall Guy” Thursday “preview” and big Friday for “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.” A $22 million opening day, with $1.6 of that “premium” cash from select locations on Wed. and over $5 more of it from Thursday night showings, puts this fourth film in the CGI-revived Apes operation on track to pull in $56 million this weekend. “Fall Guy” managed only half of that.

“The Fall Guy” is drawing half as many people as its opening weekend, and is on tap to sell another $13.7 million in tickets. It will clear the $50 million mark by midnight Sunday, but won’t come close to breaking even before it loses most of its screens to other summer fare.

Amazon’s much cheaper Zendaya star vehicle “Challengers” is still doing well, another $4.6 million which should get it over the $40 million mark by mid-week next week.

“Tarot,” the latest underperforming horror tale to come down the pike, will clear another $3.3

And the OTHER CGI ape movie that audiences can’t seem to get enough of, “Godzilla x Kong,” might stick around long enough to clear the $200 million mark. Another $3 million keeps it in the top five.

Universal has released a good, original action film — “Monkey Man” –– and a very entertaining action comedy “The Fall Guy” and seen both flame-out against two different movies starring CGI apes this spring.

One weeps for what the masses are spending their movie ticket money on these days.

UPDATED: The final word from @boxofficepro