Lilo & Stitch and Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning’s Record Breaking Memorial Day Weekend!
Memorial Day has passed, which means we got two new big hitting theaters with Lilo & Stitch and Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning. This is an exciting Memorial Day weekend to talk about. Let’s get started!
The Numbers
One thing that’s cool to notate about this Memorial Day weekend, this is the biggest Memorial Day weekend of all time. When you count Lilo & Stitch, Mission Impossible, and the other films playing in theaters it had a $320 million four day weekend which is incredible. It surpassed 2013, Memorial Day weekend where Fast and Furious 6, The Hangover: Part III, and Star Trek: Into Darkness were the main films around that time and that total was $314 million. What’s crazy is that last year’s Memorial Day weekend was the worst Memorial Day weekend in 30 years. Last year we had Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and The Garfield Movie, both opened around $25-$35 million which is bad. Furiosa was one of the biggest box office bombs of last year. I’m just excited for the fact that movies are doing well and people are going to the theater. I hope this enthusiasm transfers into the rest of the summer so that way 2025’s summer can be very good with lots of great box office numbers. Now, let’s dive into each individual film and how they did.
Lilo & Stitch
While the weekend as a whole was record breaking, Lilo & Stitch was also record breaking. The film is looking to open to $145 million for the 3-day weekend and $183 million for the 4-day weekend. This will be the biggest opening weekend ever for a Memorial Day weekend release. The previous record holder was Top Gun: Maverick with a $160 million 4-day weekend. It’s also the second biggest four day holiday weekend opening behind Black Panther that made $242 million during President’s Day weekend in 2018. On all accounts, Lilo & Stitch is going to be one of the biggest films of 2025. I think it’ll have very good legs, the word of mouth surrounding the film is good. Currently it holds a 69% which isn’t fantastic, but it’s still a good score and kids seem to be enjoying it. It got an “A” on CinemaScore which is fantastic. It seems like a lot of family films have been having great legs recently. Next week, we’re getting Karate Kid: Legends. I don’t think its opening weekend will be big enough to beat Lilo & Stitch in its 2nd weekend. There’s no direct competition with this film until How to Train your Dragon releases in mid-June. It has three weeks where it’s the big family event film and I think it’ll do great numbers because of that.
The other big question to talk about whenever a film has a massive release like this, will it make $1 billion? Right now, I think it’s very much on the table that this will happen. Granted, I did say that about A Minecraft Movie when it had a big opening, it made over $900 million and won’t make $1 billion. This film opened about $20 million more than A Minecraft Movie so I think it’s very much on the table. It makes $1 billion. Like I said, I think it’ll have good legs that’ll help it make $1 billion. The other reason why I think it’ll do great numbers is because Lilo & Stitch, the animated film, is beloved by my generation. I would imagine that for a whole lot of people, it’s the first film they saw in the theater. It’s only 23 years old so I don’t have this multi-generational appeal where kids who are known parents can take their kids to go see it. But I think that there's enough of an audience for the original animated film that want to go see this film. It’s a Disney live action movie that's getting good reviews and people are saying it is worth seeing. Of Course, Snow White (2025) is going to be one of the biggest box office bombs of 2025 but that’s largely because the film was trashed by critics and audiences. Lilo & Stitch, doesn’t have that talk surrounding it.
Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning
Mission Impossible has had a very solid weekend that’s worth talking about. For the 3-day weekend, it’s looking to open at $63 million and $77 million for the 4-day. At first glance, that might not seem like a great number; it's actually the best opening weekend for the franchise. Mission Impossible: Fallout back in 2018 had a $61 million opening. Maybe that’s not the best comparison because Fallout didn’t have the extra day. But even if The Final Reckoning didn’t have the extra day, at $63 million it would still be the best opening for the franchise. With all of that said, I'm very happy that Mission Impossible had a very good opening, there’s something else to talk about here…
Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning has a $400 million budget. It’s currently the fourth most expensive film ever made. When a film costs $400 million and only opens to $77 million that raises a lot of concerns about the film’s profitability. A film needs to make between 2.5 to 3 times its budget in order to be profitable. You do that math, this film needs to make between $1 billion and $1.2 billion to make a profit. No Mission Impossible film has ever made those numbers or even remotely close to it. Fallout is the highest grossing film of the franchise at $786 million but that film was profitable because its budget was $178 million. Even if this film does Fallout’s numbers and does around $800 million it’ll still lose Paramount a lot of money. I don’t know what this film’s legs will be, I think they’ll be good. Dead Reckoning’s legs back in 2023 were not great, it had a 65% second weekend drop which is the worst second weekend drop for the franchise. Fallout had great legs with a 42.3% drop. Tom Cruise is somebody who plays to global audiences and people want to see his films. Especially with the conversation surrounding the film being so much about the plane sequences I think it’s a film that people want to experience on the big screen and see the shock value of it. I think it’ll have good legs, probably a 50%-55% drop. I don’t know if it’ll beat Karate Kid: Legends, but I think they’ll be very close to each other and maybe The Final Reckoning can beat Karate Kid: Legends next week. Like I said, even if it has good legs and makes over $700 million, that doesn’t mean this film is going to be profitable. It's very unfortunate that Mission Impossible’s possible last film might not do great numbers at the box office.
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