The Little Mermaid On Track To Swim Away With Over $100 Million During Opening Weekend

Any notion you might have had that Disney's cottage industry of live-action remakes could be running out of commercial steam won't be proven correct with their latest offering. Deadline reports that "The Little Mermaid," starring Halle Bailey as Ariel, is on track for an opening weekend box office take of more than $100 million. If it manages to hit the upper part of its box office projections, it might even be in the top three for Memorial Day opening weekends.

Previews and Friday screenings of "The Little Mermaid" have taken in $38 million already, and if the movie continues to perform as it did during its first night in theaters, it will make somewhere in the neighborhood of $104 million in its first three days. Throw in the Memorial Day holiday and it's expected to make anywhere between $120 million and $130 million, the latter figure reportedly placing it as number three for Memorial Day openings.

While it's unlikely that 2023's live-action reimagining will replace the original Disney animated classic "The Little Mermaid" in anyone's heart, the movie does seem to be doing OK with critics and audiences. The big opening weekend numbers have come along with an outpouring of fan love from users on social media, where audiences have expressed admiration for Halle Bailey's performance and the nostalgic feelings the film has produced. Over on Rotten Tomatoes, it has a respectable red Tomatometer score of 67% and a much more generous audience score of 95%.

"The Little Mermaid" is not the first live-action Disney remake to open on Memorial Day weekend. "Aladdin" did the same in 2019, taking in almost $117 million over the four-day weekend. That's a figure that even the lower end of weekend projections for "The Little Mermaid" would handily surpass, which will make it the best Memorial Day opening for any Disney live-action remake.