Hollywood's biggest summer blockbusters are off to a slow start

• Hollywood saw weak box office sales over Memorial Day weekend, despite new releases.
• Memorial Day weekend box office revenue is down 40% year-over-year.
• Studios hope upcoming releases like "Deadpool & Wolverine" will boost summer sales.

Hollywood is betting on movies like "Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga" and "Garfield" to bring people to movie theaters this summer, but box office sales were weak during the critical Memorial Day weekend.

Warner Bros. claimed "Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga" brought in $25.6 million in ticket sales through Sunday. Meanwhile, Sony expects "Garfield" to make $31.9 million from total Memorial Day weekend sales through Monday. The film studios self-reported ticket sales, and each reported their movies as the No. 1 film of the weekend.

It's the worst Memorial Day opening weekend for Hollywood since 1995 when "Casper" earned $22.5 million, The Associated Press reported. The numbers do not include ticket sales for 2020, when movie theaters were closed during COVID.

Memorial Day weekend sales for theaters in the United States and Canada are expected to be down 40% year-over-year, equivalent to $125 million, according to Comscore. 

To compare, "Top Gun: Maverick" raked in $160 million during its opening weekend in the summer of 2022, while 2023's "The Little Mermaid" made $119 million.

Film studios hope that films premiering later this summer, like Disney's "Deadpool & Wolverine" and "Inside Out 2," will boost the box office numbers to offset the initial sluggish sales. The release date for "Deadpool & Wolverine" was pushed from May 4 to July 26 after the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes delayed production.

Besides "Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga" and "Garfield," other top movies during Memorial Day weekend include Paramount's "If," which is expected to make $21 million through Monday, and 20th Century's "Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes," which is expected to make $17.1 million through Monday. Universal's "The Fall Guy" is expected to make $7.6 million through Monday.

• See also: The best Memorial Day sales from Amazon, Walmart, and co