Weekend 4-Day Actuals: ‘Pirates’ Sails To $78.4M; ‘Baywatch’ Drowns with $23.1M

Tuesday Update: Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales swam to the surface of the Memorial Day weekend box office, with a $78.4 million four-day holiday weekend.

Paramount’s Baywatch flailed in the water with a $23.1 million four-day weekend, in line with the lowest end of expectations.

Disney’s Beauty and the Beast spent its 11th weekend in the box office top 10, becoming only the fifth film in the past four years to achieve the mark. It also crossed $500 million domestic total this weekend. In the process, Disney became the first studio to reach $1 billion domestically this year.

The full table of weekend actuals is at bottom, after the Sunday update which features more numbers and analysis.

Sunday Update: Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales swam to the surface of the Memorial Day weekend box office, with an estimated $62.1 / $76.6 million three-day and four-day holiday weekend.

Despite first place, the adventure sequel starring Johnny Depp and Javier Bardem does mark the lowest opening of the five Pirates films, adjusted for inflation. The film starts 9.0 percent behind the inflation-adjusted start of original installment The Curse of the Black Pearl in 2003, previously the lowest opening in the series. Tales is also only the 28th-highest Memorial Day weekend ever, adjusted for inflation.

Those comparisons aside, “This continues our mission to tell big stories on a broad canvas,” Disney executive vice president of distribution Dave Hollis tells Boxoffice in an interview. “We have in Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow one of the most iconic characters film has ever known.”

In the process, Disney propelled past $1 billion domestically, the first studio to reach that mark this year. They’ve done so in large part based on the success of two other films which also make headlines this weekend, for different reasons.

Disney’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 took second place with an estimated $19.8 / $24.2 million, in a ranking that surprised many as most expected Paramount’s Baywatch to take the runner-up slot. (More on that film in a moment.)

Guardians held on by consistently experiencing milder declines than typical for the fast-falling superhero genre, falling only 42.6 percent this weekend. Credit that to positive word of mouth and weaker-than-expected competition from the likes of Baywatch and King Arthur: Legend of the Sword.

“I won’t speculate on where we’ll finish the year,” Hollis tells Boxoffice of Disney’s billion-dollar total, “but the result to date is a reflection of a very deliberate strategy we have around branded tentpole films. Disney, Pixar, Marvel, and Lucas are all headed by some of the strongest creatives in the history of the business.”

Paramount’s Baywatch flailed in the water, taking third place with an estimated $18.1 / $22.0 million. The R-rated action comedy starring Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron marks the first real box office disappointment in years for Johnson, who last year became the single highest-paid actor in Hollywood on the strength of such smashes as Furious 7, Central Intelligence, and San Andreas. (His April film The Fate of the Furious did great as well.)

Baywatch starts considerably below almost every other comparable film such as 21 and 22 Jump Street, We’re the Millers, and The Hangover Part III. It does begin about in line with the $17.8 million opening of Let’s Be Cops, but that film boasted less star power, wasn’t based on such popular original source material, and didn’t open in high-grossing May.

Baywatch’s audience was 52 percent female, a notable change from the male-driven fan base of the original Pamela Anderson-led television show.

Disney’s Beauty and the Beast captured 10th place, but notches two incredible milestones: crossing $500 million total and spending its 11th weekend in the top 10. Beauty now stands at #8 all time in pure dollars, while currently ranking #72 all time when adjusted for inflation. It’s only the fifth film in the past four years to spend at least 11 weekends in the top 10, with two of the others also produced by Disney: Zootopia and Frozen.

2017 has already seen three films reach 11 weekends in the top 10: Beauty and the Beast, Hidden Figures, and La La Land. The last time this occurred was 2003, with Chicago, Finding Nemo, and Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. With 2017 not even halfway done yet, it’s still possible that another film — or two? — could reach the milestone before the year is out.

“There’s been a real focus on quality,” Hollis tells Boxoffice when asked to explain Disney’s ability to create films still attracting audiences after two and a half months. “You can have a big opening, but then you need to have it be something people want to see over and over. Repeatability was a big key to reaching the $1 billion plateau this year, and our record year last year.”

Pirates started domestically with $23.4 million on Friday, including $5.5 million from Thursday night previews, for a 3-day weekend to Friday ratio of 2.65. The audience was 53 percent male and 37 percent under age 25.

Baywatch opened a day ahead of the weekend on Thursday with $4.5 million, including $1.25 million from Wednesday night previews. The 3-day weekend to Friday ratio is 3.15, although that number may have been artificially raised by the Thursday opening depressing Friday’s numbers.

The top 10 films this weekend earned an estimated $131.6 million total. That’s 14.1 percent above the $115.3 million earned by the top 10 last weekend. It’s also 16.2 percent percent below the $157.2 million earned by the top 10 on this weekend last year, when X-Men: Apocalypse led with $65.7 million.

Overseas Update:

Overseas Pirates starts with a massive $208.4 million weekend, for $270.6 million globally. While that’s certainly impressive, it does mark a downturn from the franchise’s two previous installments: 22.8 and 21.3 percent respectively below the global openings for On Stranger Tides and At World’s End.

Led by $67.8 million in China, the film also notches the highest opening of all time in Russia, with $18.1 million ($18.6 million if including previews). The film starts at first place in all 54 markets except India, and even there it was #1 Western film.

Universal’s The Fate of the Furious passed $1 billion overseas this weekend, making it only the sixth film to ever do so. (The other five are Avatar, Titanic, predecessor Furious 7, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and Jurassic World.)

Fate currently stands at #11 globally all time with $1.22 billion, and #6 overseas with $1.001 billion. The 81.8 percent of its global total from overseas grosses is the highest ever for a billion-dollar film, reflecting the growing importance of foreign markets to studios’ bottom lines.

4-Day Weekend Actuals for Friday, May 26 – Monday, May 29, 2017:

Studio Weekend Estimates for Friday, May 26 – Sunday, May 28, 2017: