‘The Little Mermaid’ swims to the top of the box office

Disney’s live-action retelling of “The Little Mermaid” is making a big splash at the domestic box office this weekend, debuting in first place and collecting $95 million during its first three days in theaters, according to studio estimates. That total is expected to rise to $117.5 million by the end of the Memorial Day weekend.

The highly anticipated fantasy film matched early box office predictions, which projected that the movie would open to about $100 million in the United States and Canada during the normal three-day window and about $120 million through Monday.

Internationally, “The Little Mermaid” launched at $68.3 million for a global cumulative of $163.8 million.

Completing the top three (so far) this weekend are Universal Pictures’ “Fast X,” which nabbed $23 million in its sophomore outing for a North American total of $108 million as of Sunday; and Disney’s “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” which added $20 million in its fourth weekend for a North American cumulative of $299.4 million over the regular three-day period, according to studio estimates.

Directed by Rob Marshall, “The Little Mermaid” stars Halle Bailey as Ariel, a rebellious sea princess who dreams of becoming human. Among the supporting cast of the family film are Jonah Hauer-King as Prince Eric, Javier Bardem as King Triton, Daveed Diggs as Sebastian, Jacob Tremblay as Flounder, Awkwafina as Scuttle and Melissa McCarthy as Ursula.

An updated version of the 1989 animated classic, “The Little Mermaid” scored the fifth biggest domestic opening of Disney’s live-action remakes, surpassing 2019’s “Aladdin” ($91.5 million). Rounding out the top five are 2019’s “The Lion King” ($191.8 million), 2017’s “Beauty and the Beast” ($174.8 million), 2010’s “Alice in Wonderland” ($116.1 million) and 2016’s “The Jungle Book” ($103.3 million), according to measurement firm Comscore.

The aquatic adventure also notched the fifth biggest Memorial Day weekend opening of all time in the United States and Canada, the studio reported.

“The Little Mermaid” received a middling 67% “fresh” rating on review-aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes and a solid A grade from audiences polled by CinemaScore.

“If Bailey is less expressive in her non-singing moments — a flaw built into the story itself, once Ariel is magically divested of her voice — she nonetheless makes an empathetic, eminently see-worthy heroine,” writes Times film critic Justin Chang.

“‘The Little Mermaid’ … has its visually garish moments, most of them in an underwater kingdom that looks like especially thin soup next to the recent ‘Avatar: The Way of Water.’ But down in the depths it does find stray passages of beauty — in the fabric-like plumage of the mermaids’ tails and especially in the pull-out-the-stops staging of ‘Under the Sea,’ still the movie’s most rousing number.”

Opening in wide release next weekend is Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios’ “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.”