Box office preview: ‘Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga’ and ‘The Garfield Movie’ should make this a Memorial Day to remember

For decades, Memorial Day weekend has traditionally been a hugely busy weekend at the box office, often offering the biggest of franchise sequels — or in this case, two potential franchise prequels? Read on for Gold Derby’s box office preview.

The Memorial Day bump that has helped so many franchise installments before will certainly be in play for George Miller‘s return to the post-apocalyptic world of Mad Max with “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,” a prequel that tells the earlier story of Charlize Theron‘s character from “Mad Max: Fury Road.” This one stars Anya Taylor-Joy as the title character, joined by Chris Hemsworth as a new antagonist called Dementus, as well a mix of new characters and ones that appeared in “Fury Road.”

Miller’s career as a filmmaker pretty much began back in 1980 with “Mad Max,” a cult action movie that introduced Mel Gibson to the world, leading to two more successful sequels in 1982 and 1985, though they weren’t mega-hits compared to other movies from the ’80s. (For example, Steven Spielberg‘s “Raiders of the Lost Ark” made $225.7 million in 1981; “The Road Warrior” topped out at just $23.7 million opening a year later.)

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Miller returned to the franchise after forays into family films like the “Babe” and the “Happy Feet” animated movies with the 2015 reboot “Mad Max: Fury Road,” which had Tom Hardy taking on the title role, but the spotlight was also shared with Charlize Theron‘s character, Furiosa. It only opened with $45.4 million the weekend before Memorial Day but ended up with $153.6 million domestic and $369.9 million worldwide. That’s also not on par with other comparable summer blockbusters, but its performance at the Oscars, winning six gold men, has probably helped its post-theatrical awareness, as has the fact that it and all previous “Mad Max” movies are appropriately streaming on Max.

As with “Fury Road,” the action prequel premiered at the annual Cannes Film Festival, where it received high praise and standing ovations, both which should help with the already high interest in seeing what Miller and Taylor-Joy do together. The movie’s ultrawide release into nearly 4,000 theaters should counterbalance the fact that its R-rating may limit younger audiences, but you combine that with the usual Memorial Day weekend desire to see movies, and this is going to be opening close to $56 million or more over the four-day holiday weekend.

Undaunted by the George Miller juggernaut, Sony decided to use the weekend to release its animated “The Garfield Movie,” with Chris Pratt voicing the popular comic strip and cartoon feline created by Jim Davis. Most people are familiar with the lasagna-lovin’ cat from his regular comic strips beginning in the mid-’70s, but Garfield has also been in a number of animated television series over the years, as well as two live action feature films, in which he was voiced by Bill Murray.

The first of Murray’s movies opened with $21.7 million in the summer of 2004, making $75 million domestically, while its sequel bombed two years later with just $28.4 million grossed in North America. Being a fully animated movie certainly can help this latest iteration, as can having Pratt voicing the character, considering that last year’s “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” was the second highest-grossing movie domestically after “Barbie.” The voice cast also includes Samuel L. Jackson (as Garfield’s father), Hannah Waddington from “Ted Lasso,” Ving Rhames, Nicholas Hoult (from “Fury Road,” ironically) voicing Garfield’s master Jon, Cecily Strong, Snoop Dogg and more.

Reviews so far are mixed at best with just 54% on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of this writing, but not nearly as bad as 2017’s “The Emoji Movie” ($24.5 million opening) or 2016’s “The Angry Birds Movie” ($38.2 million opening). The latter is a great example of how a well-known property can get family audiences into theaters, but another good comparison is 2015’s “The Peanuts Movie,” which opened with $44.2 million and ended up with $250 million worldwide.

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The popularity of Garfield and Pratt should allow “The Garfield Movie” to open somewhere in the $35 to $40 million range over the four-day holiday weekend, for an easy second place. We’ll then have to see how well it plays for repeat business in the weeks leading up to the release of Pixar’s “Inside Out 2” in June.

Delayed from last year, Angel Studios’ biopic “Sight” stars Terry Chen as eye surgeon Dr. Ming Wang, who encounters a blind orphan looking for a miracle, while he also has to face up to the issue he encountered growing up in China. Co-starring Greg Kinnear, it’s directed by Andrew Hyatt (“Paul, Apostle of Christ,” “Full Grace”), and it’s getting a wide release into 2,000 or more theaters, though the last few faith-based films – “Cabrini,” “Ordinary Angels” and “Unsung Hero” – didn’t open over $10 million, and those involved much more compelling characters and stories. The extended Memorial Day weekend could help “Sight” make $5 to 6 million over the four-day weekend, but that won’t be enough to get into the top five.

Also hitting select theaters this weekend is Richard Linklater‘s “Hit Man,” starring Glen Powell as professor Gary Johnson, who helps out the local police by pretending to be a hitman in order to trap those looking to hire one to kill others. The plan goes well until he meets and falls for Adria Arjona. The movie will get a release into select theaters ahead of its streaming premiere on Netflix in June, having received rave reviews since premiering during the September festival circuit last year.

Also, Marco Bellocchio‘s adaptation of David Kertzer‘s “Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara” will hit select theaters, courtesy of Cohen Media Group, after a festival run last fall, looking at the true story of a young Jewish boy who is taken by the Catholic Church to be raised apart from his family.

Check back on Monday to see how all the movies above and the returning movies do over the Memorial Day weekend.

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