Box Office Report: Once Upon a Time in Photorealistic Hell

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | July 28, 2019 |

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | July 28, 2019 |

With even a 60% drop from its first week, Disney’s The Lion King still took in a very impressive $75.5 million this weekend, bringing its domestic total to $350.7 million and an international gross of $962 million. Yeah, this film is gonna be top three of the year, surely? Unless Cats surprises us all. For those of you keeping count, the top six highest-grossing movies of 2019 so far are all Disney or Disney-adjacent, as is the case with Sony/MCU’s billion-dollar hit Spider-Man: Far From Home. All of them have made more than $900 million. Speaking of Disney, Aladdin also managed to pass $1 billion worldwide. I’m scared.

Say what you want about Quentin Tarantino — and Twitter hasn’t exactly been quiet on that front this weekend — but it’s still hugely impressive that, in the domination of Disney that is 2019, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, an R-rated drama managed to bring in $40.3 million. That’s a new three-day weekend for the director. The director’s name is big enough, as are those of the three leads, to get butts in seats this Summer. Can it hold on and help this movie recoup its $90 million budget? Stay tuned.

The rest of the box office is pretty sparse this week. That’s what happens in the shadow of the evil mouse. You saw a lot of films dramatically losing the number of theatres they were screened in as most places made room for those Disney titles. There were a few exceptions. A24’s The Farewell made $1.5 million this weekend as it continued its slow and well-managed expansion. $3.6 million over three weeks from a very small release in a very crowded market is nothing to sneeze at.

Honeyland, a documentary about a North Macedonian beekeeper, made just under $30k from two theatres, while another documentary, Mike Wallace is Here, brought in $19,500 from three theatres.

This coming week sees the release of Hobbs & Shaw, the first spin-off of the Fast & Furious franchise.

You can check out the rest of the weekend box office here.

What films did you watch this weekend? Let us know in the comments.