How will The Little Mermaid perform at the box office? In our long-range box office forecast, we are going to take a look at how it’ll take on the domestic and worldwide box office.
The Little Mermaid
Disney Live-Action are notorious for two things – obtaining a bunch of criticism and obtaining a bunch of money. Let’s take a quick look at the box office for some of Disney’s Live-Action trend:
- The Lion King – OW: $191.7M / DOM: $543.6M
- Beauty and the Beast – OW: $174.7M / DOM: $504M
- The Jungle Book – OW: $103.2M / DOM: $364M
- Aladdin – OW: $91M / DOM: $355.5M
- Dumbo – OW: $45.9M / DOM: $114.7M
It’ll be tough for The Little Mermaid to reach the heights of The Lion King or Beauty and the Beast as they are juggernaut performances and more notably, had excellent marketing campaigns. Coming from another iconic property akin to the likes of the top performers noted above, The Little Mermaid has all the potential to reach massive heights but will it?
This will be a very interesting box office run so let’s break down the current advantages and disadvantages for The Little Mermaid’s box office run:
Advantages:
- The Little Mermaid property is iconic and has a renowned legacy to its name; releasing in 1989 and earning $84.3M in its original release (approx. $205.2M if adjusted for inflation). The real impressive figure is that The Little Mermaid (1989) is the 11th top selling home video in the United States with 25.9M units sold; as for revenue, it is 8th with $565M. In comparison to the Live-Action films noted above, it is below The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin in units sold but above Beauty and the Beast in revenue. The history and legacy speaks for itself.
- The appeal across many demographics will assist in the film getting a good run throughout summer – depending if word of mouth is strong. The key demographics is aimed at a female audience and across multiple generations which should help from a counterprogramming perspective, relative to competition before and after release.
- Film release in China aligns with the worldwide opening – this should allow for the film to take in an additional $50M+ to its worldwide total.
Disadvantages:
- Early reception to footage and other marketing collateral has been fairly mixed thus far. From a social metric standpoint, interest and sentiment has been significantly below what we have seen from Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast and the The Lion King. Criticism to particular aspects of the film such as VFX or runtime being an hour longer than the original has been noticeably loud.
- Historical box office figures do not support a box office performance as large as the top four movies noted above. Based on the data for the original animated films, they were significantly higher in their period of time minus The Jungle Book as that released 22 years prior in 1967. The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin were significantly higher in their original release.
- Wedged in-between Fast X and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse will create problems – particular for its premium screen counts. Allowing only one week to take in additional earnings in the premium formats. Following its release, it has to deal with Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, The Flash and Elemental. All of these films release in consecutive weeks and while The Little Mermaid can pick out a unique audience separate from these films, the real concern is the quick decrease in theatre and screen count.
Our Box Office Forecast for The Little Mermaid:
Domestic Box Office:
Opening Weekend: $86 million
Total: $274 million
Worldwide Box Office:
Total: $830 million
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