The Mad-Max-but-without-Mad-Max sequel Furiosa just barely edged out the nth reboot of Garfield to take the box office prize -- but it was no prize at all. It was the weakest Memorial Day opening since Casper in 1995.

[I]t's the worst Memorial Day weekend in nearly three decades -- excluding 2020 when theaters were entirely closed due to COVID. Box office comparisons to the same holiday weekend in 2023 are particularly tough -- down by nearly 36% -- given that Disney's "The Little Mermaid" remake took the crown with $118 million, one of the best debuts for the holiday. Overall, this Memorial Day stretch adds to Hollywood's summer woes as ticket sales remain 22% behind 2023 and a concerning 41% behind 2019, according to Comscore.

It's a particularly disappointing showing for "Furiosa," the fifth entry in director George Miller's post-apocalyptic "Mad Max" series. The R-rated film, which stars Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth, was expected to lead with $40 million to $45 million over the holiday stretch. And even that wouldn't have been a stellar start given the film's $168 million price tag. Globally, "Furiosa" has earned $65 million. At this rate, it'll struggle to live up to the franchise's previous entry, 2015's "Mad Max: Fury Road," starring Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron, which opened to $45 million (not during a holiday weekend) and ultimately grossed a modest $380 million globally. Despite great reviews, analysts believe that "Furiosa" faltered because prequels rarely do as well as direct sequels, especially when they don't have the original stars. And this action epic failed to expand beyond its core demographic of older male moviegoers.

For "Garfield," which cost $60 million, it's a decent start for a family film while arriving on the lower end of projections of $30 million to $35 million. The movie has already generated $66.3 million overseas and $91.1 million globally, so it's well positioned in its theatrical run. Chris Pratt voices the titular cat who hates Mondays and loves lasagna in "The Garfield Movie," which was financed and produced by Alcon Entertainment.

This is all actually worse than reported, because none of these box-office figures are inflation-adjusted. That is, tickets cost more now due to simple inflation, and we're comparing 1995 dollars to today's dollars without boosting the older dollars to reflect their greater worth.

The media is trying to cope with the public's rejection of the media.

Heading into Memorial Day weekend, it was already expected that the box office would see the lowest totals from this holiday since the turn of the century. The final results have fallen even below that.

The No. 1 film for this weekend, "Furiosa," made just $32 million over the four-day period, making it the lowest No. 1 Memorial Day release since 1995, when the family film "Casper" opened to $22 million before inflation adjustment.

Box office analysis company Nash Information Systems, operator of The Numbers, had projected a $160 million 4-day total prior to the start of the weekend. That would have been enough to make it the lowest Memorial Day weekend since at least 1999. But the final total has clocked in at $128 million, down 37% from last year and the lowest in 26 years.

This dramatic a low could suggest a real tipping point for the theatrical movie business. What are the implications for the future of a theatrical business when Memorial Day, with well-reviewed movies, hit a 26-year low? And having chosen to embrace streaming while producing movies for theaters, what changes might studios need to make to adjust to the new reality?

Maybe people just aren't going to theaters any longer, and will wait to see movies at home.

Both The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare and The Fall Guy are already available on Video on Demand, albeit at too-high prices, $20 to rent, $25 to buy. (I'll have to wait a few months before the prices come down to a more reasonable level, like $15 to buy.)

This is terrible for Hollywood -- and it's just going to get worse and worse, because they have very few movies ready for the next year, due to the actors' and writers' strikes.

There is going to be an enormous collapse of movie theaters. One quarter, one third, who knows how many theaters will be shut down over the next year.

Did the public tune out of Furiosa because we're just sick of Girl Bosses? Maybe. Girl Boss movies are no longer a gimmick, they're now the rule, and we're all pretty tired of them.

Did people just stay away because -- well, who cares about Furiosa, anyway? I was disappointed with Fury Road because Mad Max was very decidedly a co-star or second banana. I'm not really into the "Mad Max extended universe" -- I'm a fan of the character. (And the car.) This movie jettisons Max completely.

Reviewers I trust say that Furiosa is a pretty good movie (though not as good as Fury Road) and has good action.

But maybe people are just sick of female-led action movies, period. Even if you don't object to the obvious pandering feminist politics-- the female badass action hero is now a huge cliche. What else ya got?

And let me be like the millionth person to ask this -- if "Muh Representation" is so, so important in a customer's decision whether or not to consume a particular piece of media, then where, may I ask, is the representation for the men in what are traditionally movies for men?

On the other hand, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, which I heard was okay if a bit disappointing, and The Fall Guy, which I heard was silly but a lot of fun, also both bombed.

(The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare might partly be a victim of the anti-Girlboss sentiment, because I've heard that about half the movie follows a female spy and her black partner, who are in a different storyline the male-heavy, action-heavy storyline promised in the advertisements.)

An even worse scenario for Hollywood is if this isn't about a public sick of the endless parade of masculine girlbosses. At least if the problem is girlbosses, Hollywood could, theoretically, stop making every male franchise into a female one. (Though if they were capable of making such a change, you'd think they'd have done so in 2018, after The Last Jedi.)

At least they could fix that. If they wanted. Which they don't want.

But maybe this has less to do with Girl Boss heroines, and more with the fact that Gen Z just doesn't seem to want to go to any movies at all. They just want to watch TikTok and Youtube.

And of course Hollywood's primary audience for 60 or 80 years have been young people aged 15 to 29.

Hollywood (and every other entertainment industry) has been chasing them hard, believing, insanely, that young people just want to see entertainment with extremist leftwing politics and lots of gays and transgenders.

But that's not working. (Obviously.)

It could just be that this audience is all-but-unreachable, and Hollywood needs to start playing more to older audiences. Which is a much smaller audience -- older people don't like going to theaters, either -- but at least they'll show up for big movies on occasion.

How can Hollywood continue if young people just aren't interested in theatrically-exhibited movies any longer?

It probably can't. Not without a dramatic downsizing.

Movie theaters saw audiences abandoning them, and started upgrading their theaters. A lot of theaters now have reclining chairs that let you lay nearly completely flat, like you're watching a movie from your bed at home.

And that was a nice, though late, investment.

But that won't help if no one feels like seeing movies in a theater. Plus, all of these theaters certainly went into longterm debt to install all of these pricey motor-driven Lay-Z-Boys.

I don't see how the theaters can survive, except as a niche, nostalgia-based thing.

Below, Midnight's Edge discusses the probably-doomed Furiosa film. You won't be surprised to find out this film was greenlighted by the same female executive who had the Galaxy-Brained idea to get rid of the main male DC heroes -- Batman and Superman -- and replace them with their female derivative characters, Batgirl and Supergirl.

George Miller, by the way, had been working on Mad Max scripts which actually -- get this! -- featured Mad Max as the main character.

But this is the one she greenlighted.

Every article leaves with the hope that the upcoming Despicable Me sequel and Deadpool & Wolverine might "save the summer."

Despicable Me, okay, that's a kids' movie, I can see that defying the trend.

But Deadpool...?

I'm a fan of Deadpool, and even of Ryan Reynolds, and Hugh Jackman, but... I kinda don't care about this movie. Deadpool is officially joining the MCU at the exact time that no one cares about the MCU any longer. The MCU is now at Full Kathleen Kennedy Syndrome -- there have been so many crap movies and Disney Minus TV shows that people can't even remember when it was any good, or why they ever bothered.

The advertisements have Deadpool proclaiming he his "Marvel Jesus" and thus will save the MCU.

But what if the MCU is just Deadpool's Calvary?