Weekend Wrap-Up: Spider-Man Repeats on Top, but 2019 Takes Another Hit

July 16, 2019

Spider-Man: Far From Home

It was a mixed weekend at the box office. On the one hand, nearly every film in the top five topped expectations, albeit by small margins in most cases. This includes Spider-Man: Far From Home, which led the way with $45.35 million over the weekend. On the other hand, we still saw a serious decline with the overall box office down 31% from last weekend to $126 million. Worse still, this was 24% lower than the same weekend last year and this left 2019 further behind last year’s pace. It is now behind 2018 by 8.6% or $570 million at $6.10 billion to $6.67 billion.

Spider-Man: Far From Home declined just 51% during its sophomore stint earning $45.35 million over the weekend for a two-week total of $274.58 million. The film will speed past $300 million shortly and $350 million seems like a safe goal at this point. There is a chance the 51% decline is deceptive, because the film opened on a Tuesday, which undoubtedly caused its three-day opening to be lower than it otherwise would have been. That said, its reviews and its A from CinemaScore are strong indicators that its word-of-mouth is a big help and that’s not going to change anytime soon.

Toy Story 4 came within a rounding error of expectations and fortunately it was on the high end at $20.95 million over the weekend for a four-week total of $346.65 million. The Lion King is likely going to steal most of Toy Story’s target audience, so it will quickly drop from here. That said, it has already made enough to be a financial success, even if it missed expectations.

Crawl opened on the high end of expectations with $12.01 million during its opening weekend. This film’s reviews are 87% positive and it earned a B from CinemaScore, which are excellent scores for a horror film and strongly suggest good legs for the genre. That said, horror films historically have shorter than average legs, so I don’t expect this film to reach much further than $30 million domestically. It should earn enough for Paramount’s share of the box office to cover its $17 million production budget, so as long as it doesn’t bomb internationally, the film will break even sooner rather than later.

Stuber was the only disappointment in the top five earning fourth place with just $8.23 million during its opening weekend. The film’s box office struggles are very likely due to poor word-of-mouth, as it earned mixed reviews and only managed a B from CinemaScore, which is really weak for an action comedy. Its theater average is also low enough that it will start losing theaters before the end of the month, which will be another strike against its legs.

Yesterday rounded out the top five with $6.71 million over the weekend for a three-week total of $48.27 million. Universal’s share of the domestic box office is very likely more than the $26 million it cost to make, so it should have no trouble breaking even in the end, even though it is not doing as well internationally.

Midsommar was the only film in the sophomore class not in the top five. It fell to eighth place with $3.67 million over the weekend for a two-week total of $18.52 million. Its sophomore stint decline was just 42%, which would be a great sign for its legs, but its theater average is just $1,355 so it could lose a lot of its theaters this weekend.

Filed under: Weekend Wrap-up, Toy Story 4, Spider-Man: Far From Home, The Lion King, Midsommar, Stuber, Yesterday, Crawl