4 Reasons Why the Memorial Day Box Office Was So Awful and What it Means for a Struggling Theatrical Business | Analysis

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A mix of underperforming films and the impact of the strikes have led to the worst start to the summer theaters have seen in decades

furiosa-the-fall-guy
Anya Taylor Joy in "Furiosa" and Ryan Gosling in "The Fall Guy" (Warner Bros. Pictures/Universal Pictures)

Heading into Memorial Day weekend, it was already expected that the box office would see the lowest totals from this holiday since the turn of the century. The final results have fallen even below that.

The No. 1 film for this weekend, “Furiosa,” made just $32 million over the four-day period, making it the lowest No. 1 Memorial Day release since 1995, when the family film “Casper” opened to $22 million before inflation adjustment.

Box office analysis company Nash Information Systems, operator of The Numbers, had projected a $160 million 4-day total prior to the start of the weekend. That would have been enough to make it the lowest Memorial Day weekend since at least 1999.

Jeremy Fuster

Box Office Reporter • jeremy.fuster@thewrap.com • Twitter: @jeremyfuster

Comments

25 responses to “4 Reasons Why the Memorial Day Box Office Was So Awful and What it Means for a Struggling Theatrical Business | Analysis”

  1. Jack Avatar
    Jack

    The Mad Max franchise skews male, as noted in this article and as is evident by the 72% male audience percentage over the holiday weekend. The problem is, most older male fans of the franchise didn’t want a prequel film about a young female character with no Mad Max (and for whom they already know the outcome as it’s a prequel). They’re not going to pay for a theater ticket to see a film they didn’t want. This is not a “must watch” for older fans. That 72% of males making up the opening weekend are going to be younger skewing, newer male fans who don’t mind an action film centered on a female protagonist, hence the “B+” Cinescore. But the film will be a loss for the studio with mostly millennial and gen-z males and a small percentage of women attending in theaters while the bigger portion of the franchise fan base stays away.

    George Miller is a great filmmaker but he made the mistake of not giving the fans what they want (Mad Max) and instead giving critics what they wanted (more Furiosa).

    Reply
    1. TC Avatar
      TC

      You just nailed this!

      Reply
  2. Gina S Avatar
    Gina S

    One of the biggest issues is the price to go to a movie. My husband and I went to see the latest Ghostbuster movie. What a waste. It costed us $50 to go and a medium Icee was almost $10. And this was in Queens, not Manhattan. How do families afford that? It used to be a cheap way to entertain your children. Now the movies a bad and you need a mortgage to take your family.

    Reply
    1. Steven G Kramer Avatar
      Steven G Kramer

      Exactly. Spot on. Who wants to spend this kind of money on mediocre.

      Reply
  3. jbspry Avatar
    jbspry

    There’s a guy in my neighborhood who sells narcotics and he’s doing a land office business.
    He works a lot in front of a boarded-up New Age bookstore that recently went out of business because it couldn’t pay the rent or the payroll.
    Maybe selling something people want to buy instead of selling something you want to sell is a better idea than Hollywood gives it credit for being…
    FJB
    TRUMP2024!

    Reply
    1. Steven Avatar
      Steven

      And actually being able to afford going.

      Reply
    2. s0ul Avatar
      s0ul

      Ah a Trump Cultist.

      Reply
  4. Rand Avatar
    Rand

    We got tired of the progressive slant and incessant gay/trans/anti-white messaging. We quit buying pop and popcorn when it cost $15. No reason for us to return.

    Close it down and stop whining from the problems you created.

    Reply
  5. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Trump weighs in on “Furiosa” flopping:
    https://youtu.be/USM0U4MBjRY?si=pt5GQs_Un-YQfMpj

    Reply
  6. Ola Avatar
    Ola

    The main problem this article didn’t mention is the price of tickets and concessions. It’s insanely expensive to go watch a movie and given that there’s general inflation, people are going to be more selective with their money. Add to that the poor quality of cinemas now. The seats are generally worn down, cleanliness is hit or miss and a lot of people are badly behaved, talking during the show or getting mad and shouting at those who are talking during the movie lol. Basically, the cinema experience these days isn’t very wonderful. 

    Reply
  7. Dishwa Brown Avatar
    Dishwa Brown

    I personally boycott you if your stand on your soapbox about liberal ideals. Go woke and go broke ! You planted this seed so be careful the chickens have come home to roost!

    Reply
  8. Ralph E Hughes Avatar
    Ralph E Hughes

    Why would I support an industry that wants to destroy the established successful American way of life? Congrats Hollywood. You are reaping what you have sown!

    Reply
  9. D3F1ANT Avatar
    D3F1ANT

    Oh good…they “fixed” Mad Max by (effectively) making him a girl; a small girl who beats all the brutish men! Yaaaay! Except we’re all tired of this Woke nonsense. Proof is in the ticket sales. We like female leads…just stop using them to replacing beloved male characters.

    Reply
  10. T. Crow Avatar
    T. Crow

    How about new fresh ideas for movies? Why is it always the same Marvel universe or or remake of old movies? As it goes for the Wokeness there early isn’t a large group of people that want or like that and so the pubic has a backlash of not wanting that shoved down their throats all the time. What is it that $20-$30 a seat and $10 soda or popcorn makes it attractive to go out and see a movie? Plus people talking and cell phones being used do not help. Hollywood has always been a fantasy/trash world and they still live in that fantasy world in their minds. 
    New movie ideas, new writers and no more Woke !

    Reply
  11. PC Avatar
    PC

    Maybe, just maybe, it’s because the films suck. But self-obsessed Hollyweird would never point the finger at themselves.

    Reply
    1. PC Avatar
      PC

      Maybe, just maybe, it’s because the films suck. But self-obsessed Hollyweird would never point the finger at themselves.

      Let’s use “Barbie” as an example of how far the mainstream film business has fallen. An absolutely awful film. Nominated for EIGHT Academy Awards. You have to have an IQ under 70 to like this movie. There are THOUSANDS OF MOVIES better than “Barbie” almost all are available to watch with a 50cent cola and a 25cent bag of microwave popcorn.
      It will not be long before the “theatrical release” goes the way of Blockbuster. Good riddance.

      Reply
  12. M. Rokatansky Avatar
    M. Rokatansky

    Conglomerates and Private Equity destroying small businesses and stripping America for parts: “We’re crushing it!”

    Same groups when no one goes to see the movies their subsidiaries make: “Why aren’t the plebs spending any money?”

    Reply
  13. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    This is Hollywoods transition into social and political propaganda over creativity and trying to normalize emasculated women acting like men in movies made famous by men is ridiculous and a failing trend in Hollywood as per the numbers. Imagine if we take the greatest female acting role films and replace them with over feminized men; it would also be rejected and be the opposite of original as it’s just now becoming a copy iteration of a well known loved movie and offending its audience with strange gender magnification of minority audiences and any executive that green lights this un original gender replacement films should be fired. You can’t force the marketplace to only accept your social views as that’s propaganda and that’s what Hollywood has become. A one party political propaganda machine in the vein of ww2 Germany magnifying fake academics pushing gender supremacy which is as absurd as the whites are getting pseudoscience that Germany pushed prior to the ethnic cleansing of the Jews and ww2. It’s a dangerous path and the laws which made Hollywood open to domestic propaganda need to go as it hasn’t worked and is starting to resemble other catastrophic failures in history.

    Reply
  14. Thom Lopes Avatar
    Thom Lopes

    The people currently running the movie business are not as smart as their predecessors, back in the 50s thru the 80s. Currently, they lard up their projects with “progressive” themes, lectures, characters, and scolds.

    They forgot, or never knew, or resisted the fact that views want entertainment, not lectures or social instruction.

    Movies that emulated Giant, Midnight Cowboy, Klute, Three Days of The Condor, Ghost, 3 Men And A Baby, The Godfather, or Casino Royale (2006) would bring great revenue and make customers return.

    The dreck offered this year will only continue to kill the business by killing the desire of the customer base to buy the offered products.

    Reply
  15. J T Avatar
    J T

    Woke-Infested, terror-supporting, pervert loving  Hollywood cannot get it through their thick, Woke-Infested Skulls that when you go WOKE ….. You go BROKE ! …  EVERY TIME !

    Reply
    1. s0ul Avatar
      s0ul

      Take your meds for woke derangement syndrome.

      Reply
  16. Evil Mr M Avatar
    Evil Mr M

    There’s also the matter of a lot less screens around since Covid, although theatres have been in decline further than that. In my admittedly small sample size, there were 2 multiplex theatres within 10 mile of my home several years back, today there are none. I know of no movies in the theatres now or in the recent past that make me want to drive a half-hour or longer each way to view.

    Reply
  17. JeffC Avatar
    JeffC

    Tired remakes and woke garbage are to blame. Stop blaming covid and the strike. I cancelled my Paramount+ subscription this week for the same reason. It won’t improve until the industry recognizes what the real problems are and changes.

    Reply
  18. jack mccready Avatar
    jack mccready

    Roger Ebert once said, “Hollywood makes about 95 movies a year. Of those only 2 or 3 will be remembered next year.” Who wants to pay to see a movie with only a one in a hundred chance of being good!

    Reply
  19. Cranky Boomer Avatar
    Cranky Boomer

    If the Turner Classic Movies video channel was streamed to a local movie theatre near me, I’d make the drive to sit in their recliner seats, pay to watch a classic well-made movie (or two), and occasionally splurge on their overpriced popcorn. The garbage Hollywood turns out today just isn’t worth my time.

    Reply

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