‘Hobbs & Shaw’ expanded the ‘Fast & Furious’ brand to the tune of $60.8 million. This is just shy of the $61.5M ‘Mission: Impossible – Fallout’ made about a year ago, and that movie went on to rule the box office for the end of summer. ‘Hobbs & Shaw’ actually had a bigger opening worldwide– $180M versus ‘M:I-Fallout’s $155.8M. This marks Universal’s fifth-best global opening, behind ‘Fate of the Furious’, ‘Jurassic World’, ‘Furious 7’, and ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’. This marks the highest opening for both Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham, not counting the previous ‘Fast & Furious’ movies. ‘Hobbs & Shaw’ has not yet opened in China due to its annual foreign movie blackout. (The same was true of ‘M:I-Fallout’.)
This was never expected to open as huge as a proper ‘Fast & Furious’ film. ‘Fate of the Furious’ opened to $100.1M two years ago, but that was strategically released on Easter Weekend, not the dog days of summer, with people distracted with back-to-school and such. Optimistic predictions had ‘Hobbs & Shaw’ possibly hitting $70M, so it fell a little short, but this is still a great opening and with the global box office, this picture should nicely coast into the fall.
Critics are relatively impressed, with ‘Hobbs & Shaw’ ranking 67% on Rotten Tomatoes. Audiences gave it 4 out of 5 stars via PostTrak, with parents and kids under 12 giving it 4½ stars. Through CinemaScore, audiences gave it a great A-. Most complaints had to do with Idris Elba’s sci-fi supervillain, a pretty radical departure.
Elsewhere, Disney’s ‘The Lion King‘ has crossed the $400M mark at the domestic box office and is globally just $104M shy of what ‘Beauty and the Beast’ made during its theatrical run. That means that ‘The Lion King’ will likely soon reign as the top-grossing Disney live-action movie. (Even though it’s not technically “live-action.”) It made an addition $38.2M domestically.
‘Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood’ had a great hold week-over-week of $20M, thanks to its older-skewing audience, who don’t necessarily rush out to see movies on opening weekend. It held up better than ‘Inglorious Basterds’. This is the first case of successful adult counterprogramming this summer. Even though ‘Once Upon A Time’ is the #3 movie, it is the one that has the most overlap with ‘Hobbs & Shaw’ in terms of audience and had a bigger impact on that picture’s opening haul.
TOP FIVE
- Hobbs & Shaw (Universal) – $60.8
- The Lion King (Disney) – $38.2M
- Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood (Sony) – $20M
- Spider-Man: Far From Home (Sony) – $7.7M
- Toy Story 4 (Disney) – $7.1M
Next week sees four very different new movies arriving: horror flick ‘Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark’; true-crime drama ‘The Kitchen’ starring Tiffany Haddish, Melissa McCarthy, and Elisabeth Moss; the family-oriented reboot ‘Dora and the Lost City of Gold’; and another freakin’ sad dog movie (what’s the deal with these?) ‘The Art of Racing in the Rain’. That’s a real mixed bag, so it remains to be seen if any of them will outperform the current crop of hits.
Source: Deadline
