“Hobbs and Shaw,” Universal’s “Fast and Furious” spin-off, was the big winner this weekend at the box-office. Opening in over 4000 locations, the Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham and Idris Elba starring spin-off delivered another number one opening weekend for a franchise whose film catalogue currently sits at nine.
With an estimated $60.8M domestically and a further $120M internationally, the film did however fall short of the franchises previous The Fate of the Furious installment which debuted with a healthy $98M domestically back in 2017, so it remains to be seen whether the film will hit the global target Universal has in mind.
Elsewhere, Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon A Time…In Hollywood” entered its second week and continued with its healthy domestic gross in the lead up to its international releases from august 14-19. The Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio and Margot Robbie led feature raked in an estimated $20M bringing its total to $78.8M, a drop of 51% from its opening weekend.
Speaking of drops, Disney’s latest billion-dollar Movie, “The Lion King” saw a 50% decline but still delivered a massive $110.2M weekend worldwide ($38.2M domestic) pushing its domestic total to $430M and its global to $1.195B.
Also still in the mix is surprise hit “The Farewell.” Having been in limited release, the film is slowly expanding, hitting over 400 locations this weekend, bringing in a further $2.4M, moving its domestic total to $6.8M, however it is still unclear when the film will hit its full domestic expansion, although a European release date of September 20th appears to have been set.
As far as notable limited releases go, Neon’s Julius Onah directed, Octavia Spencer and Naomi Watts led, “Luce,” debuted with a strong $132,916 from just five locations, whilst studio IFC’s “The Nightingale,” directed by Jennifer Kent and starring Sam Claflin (The Hunger Games) opened in just two locations to the sound of $40,082.
Next week sees the domestic wide releases of five new pictures, from Paramount’s “Dora and The Lost City Of Gold,” “The Art of Racing in the Rain” from Fox, the Guilermo Del Toro produced “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” from Lionsgate, Warner bro’s “The Kitchen,” co-starring Elizabeth Moss and Melissa McCarthy, and Brian Banks (Bleecker) which sees Thomas Shadyac of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective fame return to the directors chair after eight years away from it.
Hobbs & Shaw $60,8M
The Lion King $38,2M
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood $20M
Spider-Man: Far from Home $7,7M
Toy Story 4 $7,1M
Yesterday $2,4M
The Farewell $2,4M
Crawl $2,1M
Aladdin $2M
Annabelle Calls Home $875,000
While James L. Brooks teased last year that "we'll soon be seeing" Jack Nicholson, 89, act again, and that he was "reading scripts," that idea has now been shut down by his close friend Michael Douglas, 82.