New Movies May 27: X-Men and Alice

Only two new movies will enter theaters over the upcoming Memorial Day weekend, but they're big ones. The resulting competition is sure to be brutal, and there will be a new number one movie at the end of it. The question is which movie will be on top and how far behind the other competitors will lag.

The new number one will almost certainly be X-Men: Apocalypse. The superhero movie comes to a box office that's already got a superhero blockbuster, but Captain America:Civil War has already shown signs of weakness by slipping to number two behind The Angry Birds Movie last weekend. X-Men is also riding a wave of positive buzz after its big international opening last week, so it should have no problem cruising past both Civil War and Angry Birds. Expect its opening weekend total to be somewhere in the vicinity of $80 to $100 million.

The week's other new release, Alice Through the Looking Glass, will likely take second place, although it's not clear how distant a second place it will be. The film's predecessor, 2010's Alice in Wonderland, earned $116 million in its opening weekend, but that was a long time ago, and star Johnny Depp's box-office power has dimmed considerably since then. Still, this year's sequel should be a solid performer and will probably earn around $60 million.