The Memorial weekend was all about taking over the rising waters as two movies tried to rule over the high tides. Pirates of Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, aka Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar's Revenge, slayed Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson's Baywatch at the opening weekend box office this weekend.
The Johnny Depp starrer returned with its fifth instalment and bowled over the R-Rated reboot movie for a grand opening. With both movies receiving decent reviews, the winds were in favour of the Pirates as the box office predictions signalled the Disney movie will easily overtake Baywatch. And proving the trade analysts right, both the movies opened close to the predicted margin.
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First, let's talk about Pirates of the Caribbean 5. The film opened to a little less than $75 million to claim the number one spot. Though it was expected to make lesser than its prequels, it did not fare badly at the box office. The film opened to domestic collections of $23 million on Friday, which includes the Thursday previews of $5.5 million, Forbes reported.
This is not the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie that released over the Memorial weekend. The franchise's 2007 release, At World's End released to $56.1 million opening day over the long weekend in the domestic market.
Following the mixed reviews of Dead Men (which look similar to the Stranger Tides), the new Pirates movie might touch $80 million following the Monday holiday, Forbes predicted. The website also feels that if the film attempts to create the magic of Alice Through the Looking Glass which was released over the weekend last year, Dead Men could cross the $90 million mark at worldwide box office.
Looking at Baywatch's box office collections, the hugely promoted movie starring Zac Effron and Priyanka Chopra as the villain raked in $21 million as of May 27, Variety reported. The reboot is not expected to rise over the weekend either.
The film website reported that the film minted $4.5 million from Wednesday and Thursday night previews and added $5.5 million on Friday. The numbers indicate that the beach comedy is headed for a 5-day total of about $25 million. Screen Rant predicted the film would earn at least $32.5 million.
But the big surprise came with the Alien sequel, Alien: Covenant. The film saw a 90 percentdrop in collections at the box office within one week of its release. The film earned only $14 million to reach a two-week total of $60 million. The movie ranked no. 4 this week, falling just behind Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 at number 3. Guardians 2 have earned a domestic total of $340 million.
