“Pirates” sailing, “Baywatch” sinking
Johnny Depp's “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales” will hook in $75 million during the four-day Memorial Day holiday, early estimates showed.
Should the number hold, “Dead Men Tell No Tales” would wind up slightly below recent expectations of about $80 million. The pricey tentpole, with a $230 million budget, was heading for a $26 million opening day on Friday.
Dwayne Johnson's “Baywatch”, meanwhile, is struggling to make waves, coming in at the low end of projections. The film generated an estimated $4.5 million on Thursday, which includes $1.25 million from Wednesday night previews. Paramount's R-rated action-comedy was expected to make between $32 million and $40 million during the five-day period, but it's heading for a finish of slightly less than $30 million.
The fifth “Pirates of the Caribbean” — the first since 2011 — should deliver between $150 million and $175 million internationally. It's taken in about $35 million in its first two days in foreign markets since launching on Wednesday.
The four previous “Pirates” movies have grossed $1.28 billion domestically and $2.45 billion internationally, with the North American market representing a smaller share with each new film.
“Dead Men Tell No Tales” centers on Depp's Jack Sparrow battling deadly ghost sailors, led by the Javier Bardem's Captain Salazar. Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg directed “Dead Men Tell No Tales”, with Jerry Bruckheimer producing.
“Baywatch” stars Johnson and Zac Efron in a contemporary reboot of the NBC series starring David Hasselhoff. Johnson portrays an experienced and devoted lifeguard, who butts heads with Efron's recruit until they uncover a criminal conspiracy. Other cast members include Kelly Rohrbach, Alexandra Daddario and Priyanka Chopra.
Fox's second weekend of Ridley Scott's “Alien: Covenant” is expected to wind up in fourth place, with around $16 million for the four days. Disney's “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” should close out the holiday period with around $335 million in its first 25 days.
The summer is off to slow start, with “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” as the only unqualified success so far. Senior media analyst Paul Dergarabedian told Variety that the overall weekend could match last year's $205 million total — which was only the 10th best of all time. “Fortunately, a very impressive and promising slate of newcomers is on deck, including 'Wonder Woman', 'Captain Underpants', 'The Mummy', 'Cars 3', '47 Meters Down', 'All Eyez On Me', 'Transformers 5', 'Baby Driver' and 'Despicable Me 3' among others, for whom the pressure is on to set things right and reverse this backward slide,” he added.
Source: Variety
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