First the good news: history was made this weekend as three female-driven movies — two of them costing at least $150 million apiece — topped the Memorial Day weekend box office for the first time ever.
The bad news? The No. 1 film, “Tomorrowland,” underperformed already modest predictions with an estimated $41.7 million over four days — compared with $110.5 million for last year’s leader, “X-Men: Days of Future Past.” With the second weekend of “Pitch Perfect” ($38.5 million) and “Mad Max: Fury Road” ($32 million) in the place and show positions, it’s the slowest Memorial Day weekend in North American theaters since 2001, when Ben Affleck’s “Pearl Harbor’’ set the tepid pace.
Will this deter Hollywood from making more female-driven movies — especially if they cost a lot? I don’t think so. Just last weekend the modestly budgeted “Pitch Perfect 2″ (directed by a woman, Elizabeth Banks) grossed more than its predecessor did during its entire run. And if the overtly feminist $150 million “Mad Max” didn’t live up to overhyped box-office predictions in North America, it’s doing such gangbusters business internationally that the rebooted franchise’s future is all but assured.
This weekend’s numbers suggest that overseas business for “Tomorrowland” will be soft and Disney will end up writing off its losses on a film that cost at least $180 million (and possibly significantly more).
But I think film’s problems have much less to do with its female protagonist, played by Britt Robertson, than with a cryptic marketing campaign and Disney’s decision to position this sci-fi fantasy as a vehicle for George Clooney, who gets solo above-the-title billing even though his character is barely glimpsed during the first hour (Charlize Theron, who dominates “Mad Max,” shares top billing with Tom Hardy, who plays the new Max).
Moreover, there’s strong reason to suspect that the PG-rated, not entirely satisfying “Tomorrowland” (which got only a B CinemaScore) was targeting the same audience as the PG-13-rated “Pitch Perfect 2’’ and, to some extent, the only other new wide release — a rare Memorial Day weekend horror opening, a PG-13 remake of “Poltergeist” (that was significantly less female-driven than its fabled predecessor).
Will the sun shine some day on “Tomorrowland”? Maybe. Sci-fi films that are financial disappointments often develop cult followings — even “John Carter” which may follow “Tron” into unlikely sequelhood.“Tomorrowland” is at least certain to be more fondly remembered than Disney’s last big Memorial Day flop, the mercifully forgotten “Prince of Persia: Sands of Time.”