Friday Estimates: Lion King Stampedes the Box Office with $78 million
July 20, 2019
The Lion King was widely expected to be a monster hit; however, this year there have been countless potential monster hits that have missed expectations. There have been so many that I deemed it wise to be a little more pessimistic in my predictions to prevent being disappointed yet again. Turns out I didn’t need to worry, as the film earned $78 million on Friday. It wasn’t able to match the record for biggest July day; however, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part II was the epitome of a Fanboy Film and had very short legs in theaters. The Lion King should have longer legs. Granted, its reviews won’t help, but it did earn an A from CinemaScore, so it is clear its target audience are a lot happier with the film. I still don’t think the legs will be great, but it should top the July weekend record with around $180 million. The industry needed this good news, and it doesn’t end there, as every other film in the top five either matched or exceeded expectations.
Spider-Man: Far From Home matched expectations with $6.01 million on Friday, putting it on pace for $20.7 million over the weekend, according to Sony’s projections. It will match Homecoming before long and is already a financial success, continuing the M.C.U.’s winning streak at the box office.
Toy Story 4 held up better than expected with $4.37 million, putting it on pace for more than $15 million over the weekend. This is a shock, as direct competition was intense. It also means getting to $400 million domestically is much more likely, even without a boost from Disney.
Crawl fell just over 60% from its opening Friday to $1.73 million. The film will rebound over the rest of the weekend and earn close to $6 million during its sophomore stint, which is better than expected, as most horror films have short legs.
Yesterday matched expectations perfectly with $1.39 million on Friday with Universal projecting $4.7 million over the full weekend.
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Filed under: Friday Estimates, Toy Story 4, Spider-Man: Far From Home, The Lion King, Yesterday, Crawl, Marvel Cinematic Universe