All of the headlines suggest The Little Mermaid is a huge hit, but this isn’t remotely true.
The 2019 Lion King remake made $191 million domestic on opening weekend.
The TLM remake made $118 million domestic on opening weekend.
The Lion King finished at $1.6 billion with two thirds of that being international.
The Little Mermaid only took in $68 million international on opening weekend.
Napkin math says Mermaid will make $350ish million total domestic. If international percentage holds, that’s only another $200ish million.
Projected total? $550 million. On a $250 million budget, that’s a gigantic flop.
They only made $4 million dollars in China. But globally I would not call it a flop, as you said, the Little Mermaid made $300 millions profit, that is not a flop.
"'The Little Mermaid' could top out in China with as little as $4 million."
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/china-box-office-fast-x-the-little-mermaid-1235502764/
No. The entire global box office for Mermaid’s opening weekend was only 68m. This is only about half of domestic, which is an unmitigated disaster for Disney. The Lion King, by comparison, had a 191m domestic open and 2x that internationally.
Again, Mermaid is on track to land somewhere between losing money and turning a small profit. That is hundreds of millions of dollars short of what Disney expects for these remakes.
Ok I did not understand it then but the bottom line is that success or failure it is going to be measured by Disney on whether they turn a profit or not.