Weekend Wrap-Up: Spider-Man Hits a Home Run

July 9, 2019

Spider-Man: Far From Home

Spider-Man: Far From Home really brightened up the box office earning $92.58 million over the three-day weekend for a six-day opening of $185.06 million. This is one of the biggest positive surprises of the year and we desperately needed some good news after June. Toy Story 4 and Aladdin held on better than expected and the overall box office surged growing 21% from last weekend to $183 million. This is still lower than this weekend last year, but by only 2.7% and at this point, I’m willing to call that a victory. Year-to-date, 2019 did manage to close ground with 2018, thanks mostly to Far From Home’s strength before the weekend. However, this year is still 8.4% or $540 million behind last year at $5.88 billion to $6.42 billion.

Spider-Man: Far From Home opened with $92.58 million / $185.06 million, which is more than it cost to make, so this is a fantastic start, end of discussion. It is almost impossible to directly compare this opening with the rest of the M.C.U., because this film opened on Tuesday and none of the rest did. If its legs are as good as its reviews and its A from CinemaScore, then it will have no trouble getting past $300 million domestically and into the upper half of the non-Avengers installments in the Mega Franchise. The film would have to have weak legs to not catch Homecoming after this start, so at the very least it can be seen as a success in that regard.

Toy Story 4 was very strong over the holiday earning $33.86 million over the weekend for a three-week running tally of $306.12 million. This is enough to be a financial success, even if it will miss its original expectations.

Yesterday matched expectations nearly perfectly with $10.06 million over the weekend for a two-week total of $36.19 million. The film doesn’t have much direct competition over the next few weeks, so it should last in theater for a while, becoming a solid midlevel hit in the process.

Annabelle Comes Home, on the other hand, slipped a little bit faster than anticipated, down 53% to $9.45 million over the weekend for a two-week total of $49.84 million. The film will soon catch The Curse of La Llorana, so it won’t be the worst installment in the franchise. It will also break even before the home market, so that’s good news as well. It is still a disappointment and I think the studio should reconsider the rate of spin-offs going forward.

Aladdin remained in the top five for one more week with $7.52 million over the weekend for a total of $320.71 million after seven weeks of release.

Midsommar just missed the top five with $6.34 million over the weekend for a total opening of $10.92 million. This is a great start for a film that cost less than $10 million to make, even if the film doesn’t live up to Ari Aster’s previous film, Hereditary. It might have better legs. Granted, its reviews are weaker, but it earned a C plus from CinemaScore, which is better than most horror films manage and a real step up from Hereditary’s D plus rating. We will have a better idea once this coming weekend’s numbers roll in.

Finally, Avengers: Endgame fell to ninth place with $3.12 million over the weekend for a total of $847.88 million. About this time last week I read an article stating that Endgame wouldn’t catch Avatar on the all-time worldwide chart. It is now less than $4 million from that goal and it seems practically guaranteed to get there. I think the author of that article forgot the film was still pulling in millions of dollars internationally.

Filed under: Weekend Wrap-up, Avengers: Endgame, Toy Story 4, Spider-Man: Far From Home, The Curse of La Llorona, Aladdin, Midsommar, Yesterday, Annabelle Comes Home, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Conjuring, Avengers, Ari Aster