Weekend Wrap-Up: The Lion King Reigns Over July Record Book
July 23, 2019
The Lion King finished on the very high end of expectations opening with $191.77 million topping the previous July weekend record by well over $20 million. It also made more than the rest of the weekend box office combined, as the total weekend haul was $263 million. In fact, The Lion King made more than the entire box office made last weekend ($126 million) and this weekend last year ($172 million). Needless to say, there was strong growth both week-over-week at 109% and year-over-year at 53%. Granted, 2019 is still well back from 2018’s pace, down 7.1% or $490 million at $6.44 billion compared to $6.93 billion, but at least that gap is down significantly from where it was last week.
The Lion King opened with $191.77 million, making it the fastest opening July release of all time, the fastest opening animated film of all time, the fastest opening remake of all time. There are a lot of records that fell. As for the film’s future, while its reviews suggest shorter than average legs, it did earn an A from CinemaScore and there’s no direct competition for a while, so it should be just fine in that department. It should top Beauty and the Beast’s domestic box office before all is said and done. This is in stark contrast to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallow, Part II, which earned almost as much during its opening weekend as it did during the rest of its run.
Spider-Man: Far From Home held on better than expected with $21.20 million over the weekend for a three-week total of $319.86 million. The film is less than a week away from overtaking Homecoming at the box office, entering the top ten of the M.C.U. in the process.
Toy Story 4 held on incredibly well, especially given the direct competition, down just 26% to $15.55 million over the weekend for a total of $376.48 million after a month of release. The film will hit $400 million with ease after the result this weekend.
Horror films tend to have short legs, but Crawl avoided a 50% decline earning $6.10 million over the weekend for a two-week total of $23.93 million. The film’s legs is likely a good omen for the film’s home market success, which is great news for Paramount, because they really need some hits.
Yesterday did very well over the weekend with $5.02 million giving the film a four-week running tally of $57.52 million. This is already enough to cover its entire production budget and it isn’t done yet.
The only film in the sophomore class not in the top five was Stuber with $4.12 million for a two-week total of $16.20 million. A 50% sophomore decline isn’t a bad result, but the film missed expectations by such a large margin during its opening weekend that no amount of legs would have saved it.
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Filed under: Weekend Wrap-up, Toy Story 4, Spider-Man: Far From Home, The Lion King, Stuber, Yesterday, Crawl, Marvel Cinematic Universe