AI Content vs Reality
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“Hey, ___________, please write a positive article about the box office success of The Little Mermaid….”
https://collider.com/the-little-mermaid-global-box-office-326-million/
The Little Mermaid has been performing impressively when compared to other recent Disney live-action adaptations, and now, the movie has another worldwide box office milestone in the books. According to Variety, the blockbuster romance has earned over $300 million all over the world, with the exact sum coming at $326 million as of today. It looks like there's no stopping Rob Marshall's version of the beloved story, telling the tale of a young girl who would do anything to explore the world she feels extremely fascinated by, even if it comes at a cost.
Even if the movie has managed to earn $186 million in the United States and Canada alone, it looks like The Little Mermaid is leaving her mark at the international box office, with Mexico, Brazil, and the United Kingdom as the three international territories where the adaptation has reached new heights pushing the film's international total to $140 million. While the musical romance might not reach a billion at the worldwide box office due to the intense competition of the summer movie season, it's still proving that audiences from all over the planet fell in love with Bailey's vocals, Marshall's direction, and a timeless story about romance and hope.
Reality?
https://movieweb.com/the-little-mermaid-box-office-success/
This polarization even extends to the perception of the film’s box office performance, as the film’s defenders have bent over backward, so to speak, to portray the film as a box office success, while detractors have been just as keen to portray the remake as a flop.
Released in North America on May 26, 2023, prior to the Memorial Day Weekend, The Little Mermaid grossed $118.6 million over the Friday-to-Monday Memorial Day frame, slightly ahead of the 2019 live-action remake of Aladdin, which grossed $116.8 million during the same four-day frame in 2019.However, this $118.6 million opening weekend at the domestic box office was more than offset by a lackluster opening weekend performance in the international markets, where The Little Mermaid only grossed $63.8 million, including a pitiful $2.5 million opening weekend gross from the all-important Chinese market.
As the previous live-action Disney remake films have made more money at the international box office than domestically, and by a wide margin, The Little Mermaid is in a very bad position to simply reach a break-even point financially, much less earn a sizable profit.With a $250 million production cost and a reported $140 million marketing cost, The Little Mermaid, under the most generous of projections, needs to gross approximately $560 million at the worldwide box office, according to Hollywood insiders, to reach its break-even threshold.
However, this $560 million figure, which assumes a $300 million domestic gross and a $260 million international gross, also includes $100 million in expected earnings from television, both free and pay television, another $100 million from home entertainment, digital and DVD, and $80 million from international television sales and streaming rights. Basically, the $560 million break-even scenario accounts for an exhaustion of the film’s potential revenue streams beyond its theatrical life and leaves little possibility for the film to be able to achieve any substantial profit for Disney.With its weak international box office performance, The Little Mermaid has already fallen far behind the box office pace and performance of Disney’s previous live-action remake films, not including the pandemic-addled 2020 live-action remake of Mulan.
For example, the 2019 live-action remake of Aladdin grossed $356.5 million at the domestic and a whopping $695.1 at the international box office, for a worldwide box office gross of over $1 billion. Prior to Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, the 2017 live-action adaptation of Disney’s 1991 animated film grossed $504 million domestically, and $759.5 internationally, for a worldwide box office gross of over $1.2 billion.k In stark contrast, The Little Mermaid, at the end of its second theatrical weekend, has grossed approximately $260 million at the worldwide box office. Given its current box office trajectory, especially in the international markets, the only recent live-action Disney film that The Little Mermaid has a chance of surpassing, commercially speaking, is Dumbo, the 2019 adaptation of the classic 1941 animated film of the same name, which grossed $353 million at the worldwide box office gross, against a reported $500 million worldwide box office break-even point.
Given its array of whimsical elements, how and why did The Little Mermaid become such a divisive symbol, and did the backlash against the film, and the accompanying effect of the practice of review-bombing, have, as has been suggested, an adverse effect on the film’s box office, especially in the international markets, where the remake earned a further discouraging $42 million in its second weekend for a current overseas total of $140.5 million?
Regardless of the reasons for the backlash and the film’s box office performance, the numbers don’t lie. The Little Mermaid, which has presently grossed approximately $326 million at the worldwide box office, is a box office failure for Disney. The only remaining question is: Will the box office performance of The Little Mermaid, and the intense backlash that Disney received for the film, affect Disney’s approach to their future film and television projects?
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Go Woke, Go Broke. $445 Million Worldwide. It will not break even.
