Pirates of the Caribbean 5 Is Headed for a Record-Breaking Opening

The last great Memorial Day weekend was when Furious 6 dominated, as its $97 million opening propelled the top 12 to $249 million over three days. That film is Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, a movie that was tarred and feathered by critics and audiences. While that downward trend in opening weekends suggests diminishing interest in the series among US audiences, the opposite is true at the foreign box office.

"Dead Men Tell No Tales" centers on Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow battling deadly ghost sailors, led by Javier Bardem's Captain Salazar.

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). The ship is also presumably dead.

The declining popularity around Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean movies continues - in the USA, at least - with the release of Dead Men Tell No Tales. The film raked in $62.2 million on its Friday-Sunday opening weekend. Not considered: trying to make good movies, instead of feeling a responsibility to turn any intellectual property with name recognition into a tentpole franchise, based on the notion that "general audiences" are unfathomably stupid.

This month's box office has also been tough on almost every film except "Guardians of the Galaxy".

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It certainly wasn't plain sailing for Baywatch at the box office this weekend though, with the R-rated comedy debuting to a disappointing $22.7 million in North America. The film cost more than $200 million to make and will most likely rake in most of its profit from the global box office, now at $208.4 million.

Rounding out the Top 5 were Ridley Scott's sci-fi actioner "Alien: Covenant" with $13.2 million, bringing its total to nearly $60 million, and Stella Meghie's teen romantic drama "Everything, Everything", with $7.4 million for a collective gross of $22.7 million.

The Fox film, starring Michael Fassbender, Noomi Rapace and Billy Crudup in the tale of a spaceship landing on a planet that seems idyllic - until aliens attack - netted US$13.4 million. Senior media analyst Paul Dergarabedian told Variety that the overall weekend could match last year's $205 million total - which was only the 10th best of all time.

But Wonder Woman hits theaters this weekend on June 2 and will probably shake things up.