Skip to main content

Box office hits and misses: ‘Pirates’ opens low but pushes Disney past $1B

It was good news and bad news for Disney over the four-day Memorial Day holiday weekend.

On the positive side, the $77 million opening for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales pushed the studio past the $1 billion mark domestically, giving it the second-fastest run to that mark in industry history. The only studio to hit the mark faster was, well … Disney, which crossed $1 billion in early May last year.

Recommended Videos

On the not-so-positive side, however, the opening weekend for the fifth installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise was the second-lowest for any installment of the series so far in United States theaters. As is often the case these days, though, the domestic box office only tells part of the story. In 2011, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides earned just $90 million on its opening weekend, but went on to rake in more than $1 billion worldwide — so it remains to be seen how much of an impact the international market will have on Dead Men Tell No Tales.

# Title 4-Day Weekend U.S. Total Worldwide Total
1. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales $77K $77K $285.4M
2. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 $25.1M $338.4M $788.5M
3. Baywatch $23M $27.6M $28.4M
4. Alien: Covenant $13.1M $59.9M $160.9M
5. Everything, Everything $7.3M $22.7M $22.7M
6. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul $5.8M $14.9M $17.7M
7. Snatched $4.8M $41.1M $50.6M
8. King Arthur: Legend of the Sword $4.1M $34.8M $120M
9. The Boss Baby $2.3M $169.5M $476.7M
10. Beauty and the Beast $1.9M $500.9M $1.2B

The only other new release to make it into the top ten movies was the R-rated comedy Baywatch, based on the hit television series of the same name. The movie, which stars Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron, ended up with just a $23 million domestically and a third-place finish, which probably isn’t what studio Paramount Pictures had hoped for the film’s premiere.

Topping Baywatch was Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, which still beat the new release even though the Marvel Studios sequel is in its fourth weekend in theaters. That’s not a good look for Baywatch, which earned negative reviews from critics and general audiences alike.

Also noteworthy is the massive week-to-week drop for Alien: Covenant, which earned 71-percent less this week than it did on its underwhelming opening weekend. According to BoxOfficeMojo, that week-to-week drop for Alien: Covenant is the second-largest decline of all time for a movie’s second week in theaters, following Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2, which earned more than $169 million in its opening weekend before taking a fall.

The rest of the weekend’s top 10 films were all returning movies, and there isn’t likely to be a film among them — or any of the other returning movies, for that matter — likely to compete with the upcoming weekend’s premiere of Wonder Woman. Warner Bros. Pictures’ live-action feature based on the DC Comics superhero is one of the first films in WB’s superhero universe to earn overwhelmingly positive early reviews, so fans are understandably optimistic about the film’s prospects. The only other major release this upcoming weekend is the family-friendly Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie, but let’s face it: It’s not a question of whether Wonder Woman will win the weekend, but rather, by how much.

Rick Marshall
A veteran journalist with more than two decades of experience covering local and national news, arts and entertainment, and…
Exclusive: Check out the early-stage CGI used in Captain America: Brave New World
Get an exclusive look at early-stage visual effects for Captain America: Brave New World
Anthony Mackie in Brave New World

The visual effects company Digital Domain has shared an exclusive clip with Digital Trends showcasing the work that went into making one of the most pivotal scenes in Captain America: Brave New World. At over eight minutes long, the scene shows Captain America (Anthony Mackie) and the Falcon (Danny Ramirez) intercepting a dogfight over the Pacific Ocean between US and Japanese forces that could lead to a full-blown war.

But what really makes the scene unique is that it’s almost entirely CGI. “There was a lot of footage where they captured Anthony Mackie on all these wires. But by the time it was over, it was all CG,” previsualization supervisor Cameron Ward told Digital Trends.
In the previsualization (previs) clip, we get a good glimpse at the early-stage CGI they used to build the scene completely from scratch, including the massive open-ocean setting. Ward said the biggest challenge in the scene wasn’t creating such a large space. It was the speed at which all the characters and objects were traveling.
“The biggest challenge with this scene was the speed at which everything was moving,” Ward said. “We had 600-mile-per-hour missiles flying through the air above an open ocean that we had to build from scratch. You have to set up your camera in a way that feels like Cap just flew by at 600 miles an hour chasing after them. So we had to ask ourselves, how do we visualize that?”

Read more
FX announces release dates for three of 2025’s most anticipated TV shows
A chef sits up in The Bear, a girl looks out a window in Alien: Earth, and a man stares in The Lowdown.

FX has announced the release dates for three of its most anticipated shows of 2025: The Bear season 4, Alien: Earth, and The Lowdown.

Chaos returns to the kitchen in The Bear season 4, which premieres on Wednesday, June 25. All 10 episodes will stream on Hulu at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT. The series streams on Disney+ internationally.

Read more
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning first reactions are mixed, and that’s disappointing
Tom Cruise and a group of people stand together in Mission: Impossible The Final Reckoning.

In the trailer for Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning, Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt asks someone to trust him one last time. Judging by the first reactions on social media, Cruise is now asking the audience to trust him that he still delivered an action spectacle.

The social media embargo lifted for Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning on May 12. The initial reactions are mixed, which comes as a surprise considering how much praise the last few entries have received.

Read more