4-DAY HOLIDAY WEEKEND PREDICTIONS

	X-Men: Apocalypse	$98 million
	Alice Through the Looking Glass	$72 million
	The Angry Birds Movie	$24.1 million
	Captain America: Civil War	$23.8 million
	Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising	$13.9 million

If you don’t remember last year’s Memorial Day box office, no one would blame you. Disney debuted the simply okay Tomorrowland to an underwhelming $33 million, with $42.7 million in the 4-day. Poorly received remake Poltergeist opened to $22.6 million (or $26.3 million over the long weekend). Pitch Perfect 2 and Mad Max: Fury Road reigned in their second weekends, and Avengers: Age of Ultron held on in its fourth. In fact, the 2015 Memorial Day weekend was about $25 million down from 2014’s. The 2014 box office was very similar to this year’s, what with X-Men: Apocalypse‘s predecessor Days of Future Past opening, and the original Neighbors in its third weekend. Even Captain America: Civil War‘s antecedent The Winter Soldier was still in the Top 10 after opening in early April 2014. So with a new X-Men on the horizon and the follow up to the original Disney live action remake on its heels, how will things shake out this holiday weekend?

In 2014, Days of Future Past, the second in the latest X-Men franchise and fifth including the original trilogy, opened to $90.8 million in 3 days, and $110.6 million over 4. At the time, it was the second highest opening of any X-Men affiliated film, trailing 2006’s The Last Stand by $12 million, making it the highest Bryan Singer-directed X-Men outing. Of course, Days has been downgraded to third place thanks to Deadpool‘s outsize $132.4 million take in its first weekend, and the Merc successfully beating out all the other mutants both at home and abroad. Singer’s X-Men flicks have grown exponentially with each opening, but Days might have been the end of an era. Apocalypse isn’t seeing the praise that Days received, instead receiving middling reviews, though early fan response is more positive than critics’. Though it will hardly open low, it likely won’t hit Days‘ numbers, especially with so much competition at the box office, both new and old.

	Opening Weekend	Current Gross	Facebook Likes	Tweets
X-Men	N/A	N/A	14,340,064	196,698
Alice 2	N/A	N/A	15,908,569	51,903
Angry Birds	$38.155 million	$43.721 million	976,709	37,627
Civil War	$179.139 million	$353.126 million	16,812,266	299,757
Neighbors 2	$21.760 million	$26.234 million	N/A	58,374

Back in 2010, we all wondered if Disney recycling beloved animated favorites into live action movies would work. The first, Alice in Wonderland, had a polarizing director and all-star cast, and a price tag of $200 million. Would it be a one-off? Would it do well? Would people care? Six years later, all of these questions have been soundly answered, and then some. Though the first Alice is still at the top of the list despite four other forays into un-animating, March’s The Jungle Book is catching up fast, only $4.5 million behind its domestic take, and none of the others have been slouches, either. The five adaptations together have grossed $1.3 billion domestic, and $2.3 billion internationally. Original Alice made $334.2 million in its run, and was one of the last big movies for star Johnny Depp. Depp saw the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean open to $90.2 million and cash out at $241 million in 2011, but other than that, pickings have been slim.

Depp’s career path since has been littered with iffy choices that haven’t struck exactly gold. Dark Shadows. The Lone Ranger. Transcendence. Mortdecai. Though Depp still has some pull overseas, enthusiasm for him at home has waned considerably, and his reprisal of the Mad Hatter role could reflect that. Plus, newly recruited director James Bobin has only seen small openings and moderate takes with his four Muppets movies, and the addition of Sacha Baron Cohen to the cast doesn’t mean much for numbers. One bittersweet thing to look forward to is Alan Rickman’s final performance, as the wise, hookah-smoking Caterpillar. Alice Through the Looking Glass won’t do poorly by any means, but it won’t break any records for Disney either. Early ticket sales are pacing it with Maleficent, which opened at $69 million in 2014. However, it opened the weekend after Memorial Day, so as to not outrightly compete with Days of Future Past. Alice will be lucky to hit $75 million facing off with superheroes, but it will get a boost from claiming all the IMAX screens.

Angry Birds is facing stiff competition in its second weekend, and will drop nearly 50% in 3-day, leaving it in 3rd. X-Men and Alice will split its audience, with Alice doing most of the heavy lifting. The phone game adaptation hasn’t impressed audiences much more than it did critics, and negative reviews for Alice won’t hamper it much on the first weekend. Civil War will follow just behind in 4th place, with nearly $20 million in the 3-day with a 40% drop. The latest Marvel runaway success has grossed over $1 billion at the worldwide box office, and sits in fourth place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. After this weekend, it’ll have surpassed fellow Marvel Comics flicks Deadpool and Spider-Man 2 to take fifth place of all Marvel adaptations. There is a serious chance that Civil War could get the drop on Angry Birds and come out in 3rd, as it’s been performing better day-today through the week. Comedy Neighbors 2 will take 5th place, dropping about 50% from its opening weekend as the original Neighbors did. So far the sequel has fallen significantly behind the first, which grossed over $150 million in 2014.

	Rotten Tomatoes			IMDb		Metacritic
	Critics	Users	# of Ratings	Stars	# of Ratings
X-Men	49	N/A	179	7.6	45,561	53
Alice 2	27	N/A	84	6.4	594	33
Angry Birds	43	58	15,014	6.4	6,429	43
Civil War	90	91	143,226	8.3	202,949	75
Neighbors 2	62	56	39,508	6.3	8,610	58

Fellow live action Disney reboot The Jungle Book will see a 45% drop thanks to Alice Through the Looking Glass, but still stands to gross $8 million. Jungle is director Jon Favreau’s highest grossing film to date, beating 2008’s Iron Man by $11 million. Seventh place belongs to The Nice Guys in its second weekend, bringing in around $7.5 million over the 4-day. The 70s-set flick has grossed $13.6 million so far. Money Monster follows in 8th, seeking to pull in about $5 million over 4 days. Jodie Foster’s latest directorial release has made $28.5 million, with another $9 million foreign. The Darkness will drop around another 50%, bringing in $1.5 million by close of day Monday in 9th place, and Zootopia will follow right behind, finishing out the Top 10 and possibly looking to steal 8th. The animated Disney film has grossed $938.9 million worldwide.

(Sources: boxoffice.com, rottentomatoes.com, imdb.com, metacritic.com. Starred figures are estimates. Tweets represent figures for this week only. Figures represent numbers at time of writing, and may have changed. Tracking Board does not report Rotten Tomatoes user ratings for movies that have not yet seen wide release.)

Parker Mills | Contributor