By: Keaton Marcus

Diving into the weekend, we saw Disney’s rebooted version of The Lion King take the top spot with a record debut, punching massive numbers both domestically and globally, giving once again, another turnaround for sequels this Summer. Holdovers were also abundant, with Spider-Man: Far from Home, Toy Story 4 plowing through the 300-400M mark domestically, while Crawl and Yesterday rounded out the top five. Also a note, Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame finally overtook Avatar in the global box office to become number one.

As mentioned, Disney’s extremely anticipated live-action The Lion King topped the box office this weekend with an estimated 185M from 4,725 locations (a record for the widest release of all-time, topping Endgame’s 4,662), also averaging $39,153 per-screen. The big-budget re-imagining clocked the record for biggest July debut, beating Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 with 169.1M, the biggest opening for a live-action Disney reboot, swiping Beauty and the Beast (174.7M) from the throne. Not only those two, but it also set the record for the biggest debut for a PG-rated picture. For the domestic finish, if you take in the average multiplier for all Disney live-action re-imaginings, you get 3.2x, meaning a high of 684M, and a lowest common situation coming around 535M.

Internationally, the film added another 269M overseas to last weekend’s foreign debut, resulting in a foreign gross of 346M and a global total of 531M. The film’s leading market remains China, where it was released last weekend, and has grossed 97.5M. The leader is followed by the UK (19.9M), France (19.6M), Mexico (18.7M), Brazil (17.9M), Korea (17.7M), Australia (17.1M), Russia (16.7M), Germany (12.3M), India (9M), Spain (8.4M), and the Netherlands (6M). Upcoming releases include Hong Kong next weekend, Japan on August 9th, and Italy on August 21st.

Review wise, the remake scored mixed reviews from the critics, but wonderful praise from opening day audiences, a split opinion overall. On Sweet and Sour Movies, The Lion King scored 63/100 “sweet/sour” praising the visuals, and musical soundtrack—but noting the familiarity to the original, and the lack of depth. On RottenTomatoes, it was handed a divided 54% “Rotten” while on Metacritic, the picture scored a similar 55/100. Audiences, on the other hand, enjoyed what they saw, giving the 260M production 89% on RottenTomatoes, and an excellent A CinemaScore.

In runner-up position, Sony/Marvel’s Spider-Man: Far from Home swung to an estimated 21M, dipping a reasonable 53.7% from its sophomore session, totaling an impressive 319.6M domestically heading into its third week of release. Internationally, the film continues to near the 1 billion club of films, resulting in a foreign gross of 651.1M, and a global bout of 970.7M.

Third holds another Disney feature, Toy Story 4, which grossed an estimated 14.6M, sliding another solid 30.3% from last weekend, tallying a wonderful 375.5M coming into its fifth week of release, still pacing to have a franchise record. Internationally, the children targeted film pounded another 25.8M in the toy chest, slamming to an overseas tally of 483.9M, and a worldwide total of 859.4M.

Coming to the end of the top five, Paramount’s Crawl took fourth place with an estimated 6M, falling 50% from the previous week and rounding to a domestic total of 23.8M after 10 days in release. Overseas wise, the bloody creature-feature added just 2.7M this weekend, adding to a foreign total of 9.9M and a global bout of 33.7M.

Rounding out the top five was Universal’s Yesterday, which sang an estimated 5.1M, falling only 24% resulting in a North American total of 57.5M on a production budget of just 26 million. Internationally, the what if? addition clambered another 4.3M overseas for a international running gross of 40.6M and a nationwide total of 98.1M.

On a positive note, Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame finally overtook Avatar to become the biggest global release of all-time after about 90 days in release. The film has earned a massive 854.2M domestically and has a worldwide total of 2.790 billion dollars. With the gargantuan success of this, and the hit that is Spider-Man: Far from Home, Marvel Phase 4 has announced many upcoming films including Blade, Thor: Love and Thunder, Black Panther 2 and Doctor Strange 2 and are sure to have some good hits. This proves no one is feeling Marvel fatigue, even after almost 25 films have been released.

Next weekend, we see another nationwide release come to the plate under the reign that is The Lion King. It is the ninth film from Quentin Tarantino, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood which is expected for a 30M+ debut from an estimated 3,500 locations.

TOP FIVE:

The Lion King (2019)
Spider-Man: Far from Home
Toy Story 4
Crawl
Yesterday