Box Office Analyst Predicts ‘The Little Mermaid’ “Will End Up Being A Box Office Flop,” Could Lose $50 to $100 Million
Box office analyst and YouTuber OMB Reviews shared his analysis of the box office receipts for this past Memorial Day weekend and predicted that The Walt Disney Company’s latest release, The Little Mermaid, “will end up being a box office flop.”
In a recent video upload, the analyst began, “We’re going to talk about The Little Mermaid, how it’s doing okay domestically, but internationally, oh boy, this movie is in a ton of trouble. Seeing that it has had a simultaneous release in all of the major markets overseas with the one exception being Japan. However, if we are looking at the other markets in the East right now, it’s not looking good at all for the prospects of this movie’s international numbers. And the domestic really aren’t that much better to be able to say it’ll make up for any of its losses there.”
He then asserted, “So what am I saying? I think there’s a good chance that we’ll see The Little Mermaid end up being a box office flop. And let’s just say it couldn’t happen to a nicer company.”
The Little Mermaid grossed a total of $95.4 million in its opening 3-day weekend domestically and brought in another $22.1 million on Memorial Day for a 4-day total of $117.5 million.
Internationally the film only grossed a total of $68.3 million. In China, according to Entgroup, the film only grossed an appalling $2.78 million. The-Numbers reports the film only grossed $185.8 million globally through the entire 4-day weekend.
Looking at these numbers, OMB Reviews pointed out, “This is a movie that should have been doing better. If they wanted to have a success, especially because it cost a lot more to make The Little Mermaid, for this film to be neck and neck [with Aladdin], and actually in reality, when you look at the data itself behind 2019’s film that is not a good look whatsoever.”
Aladdin had an opening 3-day domestic weekend of $91.5 million. In it’s 4-day opening domestic weekend, the film grossed $116.8 million. It went on to gross $355.5 million in its entire gross run and brought in another $691 million internationally for a global gross of $1.056 billion.
Factoring in inflation, Aladdin’s domestic opening weekend was $108.5 million, that’s $13.1 million more than The Little Mermaid’s 3-day opening weekend. In the 4-day weekend, adjustinf for inflation, Aladdin earned $138.6 million. That’s $21.1 million more than The Little Mermaid.
He then homed in on the film’s international grosses and noted, “Those international numbers basically take away any possible positivity you can say as far as the film’s financial prospects are concerned.”
OMB Reviews explained, “With a $68.3 million start and only Japan is left, and yes, Japan did provide $100 million or so to Aladdin back in 2019, right now the Asian markets are not performing well. The movie is not performing well. … So we can expect it might be a similar story in Japan. We’ll have to wait and see.”
Doing some math, he then shared more analysts based on the film’s returns in its first weekend, “You’re talking a situation here with $68.3 million internationally, where, hey, maybe let’s be generous and say [the film will gross] $200, $250 million internationally. So you take the $250 million add that to the $300 million. Okay, we’re talking about maybe a $550 to $650 million worldwide total for The Little Mermaid when everything is said and done.”
He reiterated, “But I think right now $550 to $650 million is a likely scenario and that is a big problem. … With those numbers it is not looking good at all.”
OMB Reviews then explained why a projected global gross of $550 to $650 million is a big problem, “At $250 million budget, again based on my standards, the film has to make around $625 million dollars. If you were to take this at a 3x multiplier then it needs to make probably somewhere between $625 and $750 million to break even. In either case I think it’s a problem.”
He then referred back to his $550 to $650 million projection, “As you can see from that the average would then put this movie in a flop territory, would be a financial loss.”
“I would not be surprised if when all the numbers comes in it’s a $50 to $100 million loss. That’s the kind of numbers we’re seeing from this movie right now,” he shared.
Ironically, OMB Reviews then predicted this could be a first for Disney, “This could be the first time that a full-fledged, full-featured, full distribution movie from Disney, the live-action Disney remakes ends up being an actual box office flop.”
What do you make of OMB Reviews’ analysis? What do you think The Little Mermaid will do by the end of its run?
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