Quentin Tarantino’s Hollywood (circa 1969) is a place of beauty, decay and brutality. A little like a jungle. But while his characters fit in that world like a hand in glove, you know who’s the real king of the jungle.
The Lion King took its second-straight win this weekend, topping Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood to keep the box-office crown within its paws. The Disney remake earned an estimated $75.5 million, pushing its North American tally to $350.8 million. That makes it the year’s fourth-biggest film, pushing past Aladdin ($345.9 million) and trailing just Avengers: Endgame ($856.5 million), Captain Marvel ($426.8 million) and Toy Story 4 ($395.6 million). All of those top five are, incidentally, from the House of Mouse.
The Lion King’s continued success helped Disney set another record, by the way. The studio has now earned $7.67 billion in 2019, according to Variety, which is the most money ever earned by a single studio in a single year. (Disney broke its own record, incidentally: It set the old mark of $7.61 billion in 2016.) And keep in mind, it’s only July. Disney still has a few big flicks on its 2019 docket, including Frozen 2, a new Maleficent movie and a little thing called Star Wars: The Rise of the Skywalker.
Despite finishing second, Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood had a comparatively strong start, too. The R-rated film earned an estimated $40.3 million, Tarantino’s best opening weekend ever.
Spider-Man: Far From Home is the only superhero representative in the top five this weekend. Banking another $12.2 million, Far From Home has now earned $344.5 million domestically. Add in its overseas receipts, and Sony’s Spidey cinematic spectacular has earned more than $1 billion—the ninth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to cross that lucrative threshold.
Toy Story 4 continues to pad its box-office bottom line, too. Audiences forked over another $9.9 million this weekend. I’d imagine that’d be enough for Mr. Potato Head to switch into his happy eyes.
Crawl closes out the top five with a massive chomp, chewing about $4 million worth of box-office tickets. Better that than the ticket-takers, I say.
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