Anya Taylor-Joy in ‘Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.’

Warner Bros. Pictures

The Memorial Day box office is no picnic this year

Based on Friday numbers, George Miller‘s Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga or The Garfield Movie may only open to $31 million to $33 million from 4,035 theaters over the four-day holiday, the worst Memorial Day opener in 40 years, give or take.

The two films are in a closer-than-expected race, but most rival studios expect Warner Bros. to take the top spot with Furiosa ahead of Sony and Alcon’s Garfield movie. Neither film aced it with audiences, with each receiving a B+ CinemaScore. Furiosa grossed $10.2 million on Friday, versus $8.4 million for Garfield. That’s not a big gap considering the latter is a family film.

With no holdovers to contribute in a massive way to the Memorial Day picnic, overall revenue may only clock in at only $125 million, the lowest showing in more than two decades. That excludes 2020 and 2021, when the pandemic was still raging, though Paramount’s A Quiet Place sequel was able to open to $57.1 million over the holiday in 2021.

Furiosa, a prequel that sees Anya Taylor-Joy play a younger version of Charlize Theron’s character in the last film, had been expected to open to $40 million to $45 million for the four-day holiday but instead is the latest summer event pic to underperform in its launch (an exception is The Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes). Mad Max: Fury Road started of with a three-day gross of $45.4 million.

Elsewhere, Angel Studios continues to try to emulate the stunning success of last summer’s Sound of Freedom, but so far hasn’t come close to doing so. This weekend, it is opening the faith-adjacent film Sight, which may only gross $4 million for the four days.

More to come.