YouTuber and box office analyst OMB Reviews declared The Walt Disney Company’s The Little Mermaid is “a massive flop for Disney” following the film’s second weekend at the box office.
In a video looking at this past weekend’s box office numbers, OMB Reviews opened, “The Little Mermaid dropped 58% domestically and is still making next to nothing internationally. And let’s just say that film is essentially guaranteed to not only flop, but also to be a massive flop for Disney and could ultimately be one of the worst performing movies in their entire history.”
He argues, “Now, of course, this is all on the fact that many people when looking at the box office are failing in the comparisons especially to Aladdin to remind themselves that the ticket prices back in 2019 were very different than what they are today. And also, of course, as everyone loves to always hear and as everyone always wants to get triggered by, the rate of inflation has changed as well.”
According to The-Numbers, The Little Mermaid’s box office gross fell 58% in its second weekend at domestic theaters to just $40.6 million. It grossed $95.5 million in its 3-day opening weekend during Memorial Day Weekend. The total domestic box office now sits at $186.2 million.
The Little Mermaid did add to its international total with Deadline reporting it brought in $42.3 million in its second weekend. The film only brought in $68.3 million in its opening weekend internationally. The total international box office sits at $140.5 million.
The film’s global gross sits at $326.7 million. It reportedly had a production budget of $250 million. Meaning the film is still in the red and as OMB Reviews notes it does not look like it will be turning black any time soon.
While comparing the film to Aladdin, which released on Memorial Day weekend back in 2019, OMB Reviews says, “I would suspect based on the tracking and based off the percentage, we’re looking at this movie maybe being able to get to $300 million domestically. Maybe. We still have to wait and see if that’s even gonna happen yet.”
“But ultimately $300 million domestically might sound decent on paper, especially when you compare it to a film like Fast X, but look at the international number. The Aladdin movie back in 2019 made $788 million dollars internationally,” he continued.
“So far The Little Mermaid has only made $140 [million] and that means that you’re looking at best case scenario for domestic maybe $300, $350 million, best scenario,” OMB Reviews analyzed. You’re looking at international best case scenario $250 [million]. Is that being generous, I think?”
“You add those numbers up. That doesn’t get you to $625 million which is its break-even point. So, yeah, not a good look overall for The Little Mermaid going forward,” he declared.
Later in the video, OMB Reviews shared his breakdown of the film and its box office hauls. First, he explained his process, “If you’ve maybe never followed my chart before I was able to break this down years ago that most movies, most movies will make either 70% of their entire box office within the first two weeks or if they have a really strong legs, if they have a really strong performing box office they’ll make half of their entire box office in the first two weeks. There are obviously exceptions to this but on average the vast majority of films fall somewhere between the 70% and 50% number.”
“So let’s assume that the $326 million is 70% of the entire box office for The Little Mermaid. That means that the end result, so this is a very likely scenario for this movie, would be $466 million worldwide,” he explains.
“A best scenario, so let’s say it doubles it money, best case scenario would be $650 million,” he continued. “That is a best case scenario. We are already seeing in the legs for this movie it is not holding to that extent. It is not doubling and it is not going to double what it has made so far. But even if it did $650 million would be a minimal profit and according to some metrics be a financial loss. It really depends on whether your break even is 2.5 or 3 times the budget.”
“So even if it did ‘make money’ it would still not be nearly enough to make up for any discrepancies in either direction because it’d be such a minimal profit that it really doesn’t mean all that much in the first place or it would still be a financial loss,” OMB Reviews elaborated.
He then shared his prediction for how much the film will make globally, “What is more likely to happen somewhere around I would say $500 million is probably what this film could expect to have especially based on the drops that we’re seeing with I think the best case scenario for it actually being the average of around $550 or $560 million.”
“What does that mean because of its massive $250 million budget? that means right now I’m projecting the film to lose around $100 million, but could make as much as $17 [million]. Again, that’s using a 2.5 multiplier. You could obviously see this film still lose money if it was a 3x multiplier,” OMB Reviews explained.
“On average, I expect this film to lose somewhere between $50 and $100 million and that is a minimum,” he declared.
What do you make of the box office financials for The Little Mermaid? What do you make of OMB Reviews’ analysis? How much do you expect the film will profit or lose?