US Box Office Had Worst Memorial Day Weekend Since 1999

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales was the No. 1 movie at the US box office for the Memorial Day-four day weekend, a time when overall domestic box office receipts were the lowest since 1999. According to Variety, the total US box office haul for all movies in the Friday-Monday long holiday weekend came out to $172.3 million, the lowest in 18 years, dating back to Memorial Day weekend 1999, when the haul was $142.5 million. Notably, that weekend was helped by the release of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, the first entry in the prequel series.

Some other notable takeaways from this Memorial Day weekend included Dead Men Tell No Tales pushing the entire Pirates franchise past $4 billion. Its US opening ($77 million) was the second-worst in franchise history, only behind the first film ($46.5 million).

The new Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson film Baywatch had a "so-so" opening, bringing in $23 million to finish third, behind Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 ($25.1 million).

Another notable film was Ridley Scott's Alien: Covenant, which made $13.2 million over the long weekend in the US, dropping substantially from its opening-weekend take of $36.2 million. The movie has now made an estimated $161 million worldwide, so it's looking good that the movie, reportedly made on a production budget of $97 million, will be in the black.

You can see a full breakdown of the Memorial Day weekend here at EW.