Garfuriosa' Was Not This Year's Barbenheimer
Not quite a match made in heaven. Here's why Furiosa and The Garfield Movie wasn't the surprise double feature of the summer.
Transcript
00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:01 Ready and guns!
00:04 Start your engines!
00:07 Another weekend, another bit of very bad news
00:10 for the movie business.
00:11 And that's why we should go from Sunday to Tuesday.
00:16 Memorial Day weekend has historically
00:18 been a boon for the box office, with Disney's The Little
00:21 Mermaid remake pulling in $95.4 million last year.
00:25 That's what we come to expect, pandemic notwithstanding.
00:28 Unfortunately, the dual threat of Furiosa, a Mad Max saga,
00:32 and the Garfield movie didn't prove
00:34 to be much of a threat at all, as both films fell
00:36 well short of expectations, leading
00:38 to a downright terrible holiday weekend.
00:42 You saw nothing.
00:43 Gar-Furiosa was, in the end, the direct opposite
00:46 of last year's Barbenheimer phenomenon
00:48 in every way imaginable.
00:50 Warner Brothers' Furiosa took the top spot on the charts,
00:53 pulling in $26.3 million through Sunday,
00:56 with that number growing to an estimated $32 million
00:58 when accounting for Monday.
01:00 Meanwhile, Sony Pictures' new animated Garfield film
01:03 landed at number two, with $24 million over the weekend
01:06 and $31.1 million across the Friday to Monday stretch.
01:10 In both cases, the numbers were well below industry estimates.
01:14 George Miller's Mad Max prequel had
01:16 been eyeing a debut of around $46 million
01:18 heading into the weekend, while Garfield
01:20 was looking at around $32 million on the low end.
01:23 Obviously, Gar-Furiosa certainly didn't catch on
01:26 in the way Barbenheimer did.
01:28 Barbie and Oppenheimer opened in July last year,
01:31 and both succeeded beyond even most optimistic expectations.
01:35 Barbie topped the charts with a staggering $162 million
01:39 domestically, while Oppenheimer came in second with $82 million
01:42 in the same weekend.
01:44 That's the top end of what is possible in the pandemic era.
01:47 We're a long way from the top right now,
01:49 even when you consider Gar-Furiosa's global haul.
01:53 Internationally, Furiosa pulled in a soft $32.8 million,
01:57 giving it a $65.8 million globally.
02:00 Overseas audiences won't save the day here.
02:03 Garfield, however, has already pulled in $66.3 million
02:06 outside of North America, with a running total of $97.4 million.
02:11 Against a very reasonable $60 million budget,
02:13 it will probably be fine in the end.
02:16 Sony's bottom line doesn't help movie theaters all that much,
02:18 though, with chains like AMC and Regal becoming increasingly
02:21 desperate for a breakout hit.
02:23 It's been slow going since Godzilla X Kong opened to $80
02:27 million at the end of March, to be certain.
02:29 The disappointment that was Gar-Furiosa
02:31 gave us the worst Memorial Day weekend
02:33 since Casper opened to $22.5 million back in 1995,
02:38 excluding 2020, when theaters around the country
02:40 were shut down due to the pandemic.
02:42 And that isn't even accounting for inflation, which would only
02:45 make things sound more grim.
02:47 Ticket sales in 2024 are now pacing 22%
02:50 behind the same point last year.
02:52 Hollywood is looking for answers,
02:54 as well-reviewed movies like The Fall Guy and now Furiosa
02:57 fail to draw a crowd.
02:58 Theaters are likewise looking for answers,
03:01 as they are now being asked to weather another terrible year
03:03 after several terrible years.
03:05 So yes, 2024 is very much in need of a Barbenheimer-level
03:09 event to make things look better.
03:11 That's unlikely to happen.
03:12 All eyes now turn to Deadpool and Wolverine in July,
03:16 in the hopes that Marvel's latest
03:17 can have a record-breaking debut and save the day.
03:20 Let's [BLEEP] go.
03:22 The bigger problem, of course, is that it can't be about just
03:25 one movie.
03:26 That doesn't work for Hollywood, and it
03:27 doesn't work for theaters in between the times
03:29 in that one movie arrives.
03:31 Sadly, the big Garfuriosa flop only
03:34 added to the sense of dread in the industry,
03:36 rather than giving us something to be hopeful about.
03:39 [MUSIC PLAYING]
03:42 (upbeat music)