Sony and Marvel Studios brought plenty of box office fireworks to North American theaters this weekend as its highly anticipated Spider-Man: Far From Home obliterated the competition.
The return of Peter Parker, along with the continued strong business for Toy Story 4, helped pushed the top ten up a healthy 27% over last weekend’s numbers and just slightly higher than last year’s numbers at this time. The next big business boost arrives on July 19thwith the arrival of Disney’s Lion King remake.
Until then, it’s all about your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. The follow up to both 2017’s Spider-Man: Homecoming but also this past spring’s Avengers: Endgame, Spider-Man: Far From Home spun a box office web worth $93.6 million for the Friday-to-Sunday frame and a massive $185 million since opening this past Tuesday.
Making the most from its post-Endgame release date, Home‘s six-day start on 4,636 screens is the biggest opener to date for a standalone Spidey flick (pre-inflation). 2004’s Spider-Man 2 previously held the title with $180 million. Far From Home‘s $93.6 million weekend haul was the second biggest of all time for a July 4th weekend opener, just behind the $97.8 million scored by Transformers: Dark of the Moon eight years ago.
Far From Home’s daily box office breakdown was $39.2 million on Tuesday, $27 million Wednesday, $25.2 million on Thursday, $32.5 million from Friday, Saturday at $34 million and a Sunday estimate of $27 million.
Home clicked with the critics. They gave the $160 million production a 92% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 69/100 on Metacritic. The RT score for the new film was identical to Homecoming’s from two years ago while the Metacritic score for the new film was just slightly below its predecessor’s73/100.
Far from home, Spidey’s European vacation netted a great $244 million this weekend. Combined with early openings in China, Japan and Hong Kong one week ago, Far From Home has spun a heroic $395 million after two weeks. China leads the international grosses with $167 million, followed by South Korea with $33.8 million, the United Kingdom with $18 million, Mexico with $14 million and Australia with $12 million.
After two weeks at the top of the charts, Disney/Pixar’s Toy Story 4 had itself a nice little holiday run in second place with an estimated $34.3 million from 4,540 screens, a decrease of only 43% from the week before. Three weeks into its run, Toy Story 4 has pulled in $306.5 million so far. Whether the film can cross the $400 million mark all depends on how much business The Lion King will take away when it opens in two weeks. Internationally, Toy Story 4 has earned $343.4 million.
Universal’s musical comedy Yesterday also benefitted from the long holiday weekend. The Danny Boyle film dipped a mere 37% from its opener to sing up an estimated $10.7 million from 2,614 theaters. Yesterday’s ten-day total is a melodic $37 million. Yesterday could finish its North America tour with $60 million. Overseas, Yesterday has pocketed $20 million so far.
Warner’s Annabelle Comes Home landed in third place this weekend with an estimated $9.75 million from 3,613 theaters. Down 52% –a respectable hold for a horror sequel-, the demonic dolly has scared up $50 million.
In comparison to the previous installment, Annabelle: Creation, the new Annabelle offering had a better second week hold (52% to 55%). Despite the stronger hold, Coming Home is currently running about 30% behind Creation. Should that pace continue, Annabelle Comes Home could finish with roughly $70 million. Annabelle Comes Home has earned $84.6 million so far overseas.
Rounding out the top five was Disney’s megahit Aladdin with an estimated $7 million from 2,758 theaters. Down only 25% -the best hold of any film in the top ten this weekend- in its seventh week of release, Aladdin has brought in $320.7 million so far. Overseas, Aladdin crossed the $600 million mark this weekend.
- Midsommar (A24) $6.5 million; $10.9 million
Midsommar scored solid notices from the press -82% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 72/100 on Metacritic- but viewers were a bit more indifferent to the latest artsy horror film from Hereditary director Ari Aster. They gave the film a “C+” on CinemaScore, not a great grade but higher than the “D+” given to Hereditary.
- The Secret Life of Pets 2 (Universal) $4.7 million (-35%); $140.7 million
- MIB: International (Sony) $3.6 million (-46%); $72 million
- Avengers: Endgame (Disney) $3.1 million (-49%); $848 million
- Rocketman (Paramount) $2.8 million (-29%); $89 million
Next weekend sees the arrival of Fox’s action comedy Stuber and the Paramount horror film Crawl. Far From Home will have no problem remaining the number one film in the country.
