Weekend Wrap-Up: Once Upon a Time has a Fairy Tale Start

July 30, 2019

The Lion King

It was a mixed weekend at the box office with Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood becoming Quentin Tarantino’s biggest opening film in his career, but The Lion King falling much faster than expected. The overall box office was down 38% from last weekend, hitting $162 million. However, this was 4.1% more than the same weekend last year and that’s a much more important result. 2019 is still behind 2018 by a 6.4% or $460 million margin at $6.73 billion to $7.19 billion, but at this point, I will celebrate any victory, no matter how small.

The Lion King fell faster than expected, falling 60% to $76.6 million on 4,725 screens for a two-week total of 351.8 million. The sequel effect hit it hard, which is not good news for its legs going forwards.

Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood opened with $41.08 million making it Quentin Tarantino’s fastest opening film, topping Inglourious Basterds in the process. Its reviews suggest long legs, but it only managed a B from CinemaScore, so I’m on a wait-and-see approach for this film.

Spider-Man: Far From Home added $12.45 million over the weekend to its running tally, which now sits at $344.71 million after four weeks of release. The movie will get to $350 million early next weekend. This is a monster hit, but amazingly, merely average for the M.C.U.

Toy Story 4 was next with $10.45 million over the weekend for a total of $396.21 million after six weeks of release. It will reach $400 million, but likely not before the end of the month.

Crawl rounded out the top five with $4.06 million over the weekend for a three-week total of $31.53 million. The film should get to $40 million domestically, which is enough for Paramount’s share of the box office to cover its production budget. Assuming it can do equally well internationally, then it will break even early in its home market run. Even if it doesn’t, it should still break even eventually.

- Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood Comparisons

Filed under: Weekend Wrap-up, Toy Story 4, Spider-Man: Far From Home, The Lion King, Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood, Crawl, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Quentin Tarantino