Weekend Box Office: X-Men Deliver, Alice Doesn't

It's a long holiday weekend, but it's already clear that one of the week's two big new releases is a major disappointment. The other high-profile new release isn't performing up to the most optimistic predictions, but it's drawing big enough crowds to take the top spot at the box office with ease.

X-Men Apocalypse did strong business during previews on Thursday night, but interest in the film cooled off on Friday and Saturday. By the end of the four-day weekend, Apocalypse should take in somewhere between $75 and $80 million, well short of the $100 million that some observers thought it could earn. It will probably even fail to reach the $80 million that its studio, Fox, predicted it would take in.

Apocalypse will still handily beat Alice Through the Looking Glass, though. The latter film is struggling, probably because of poor reviews and the bad timing of the news that star Johnny Depp is now the target of a restraining order from his ex-wife Amber Heard. The movie will earn about $40 million over the four-day weekend, about a third less than most predictions had it earning.

Last week's number one, The Angry Birds Movie, will tack on about $25 million to its earnings this weekend and take third place. Captain America: Civil War will come in fourth, and it will also become the year's top-domestic-grossing movie to date this weekend by overtaking Deadpool. Fifth place will go to Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising, which is performing less than half as well as its predecessor did in 2014.