A bigger splash
_The Little Mermaid_ swam pretty strong over the Memorial Day weekend, netting a cool $95.4m in 3 days and some $117.5m for the full 4-day period, marking the holiday’s 5th biggest opening of all time.
Despite some controversy — and vast disparity between how the film’s being received by critics and consumers, like the Mario movie before it — The Little Mermaid has made a splash in theaters thus far, especially for a Disney live-action remake.
**(Back) under the sea**
Disney has been bringing its cartoons to life with remakes and reimaginations for almost 3 decades, though it was Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland in 2010 that really got the House of Mouse’s live-action remake machine whirring, producing 13 films in the years since.
Not all of those revisits have been welcomed warmly, though. Indeed, just 4 of Disney’s 17 “live-action reimaginings” that got full theatrical releases have crossed the $100 million mark for domestic first weekend takings, a threshold that 18 Marvel movies have met since 2008. While The Little Mermaid’s $95m haul places it fifth in the remake rankings and beats recent offerings like Cruella and the second Maleficent installment, which debuted with just $21.5m and $37m, respectively, it’s some way down from the roaring success of The Lion King in 2019, by far Disney’s biggest live-action revisit.
And, with 14 more remakes reportedly lined up, it seems that Disney movie makers aren’t ready to call cut on live-action revamps just yet.
