Weekend Predictions: Will Lion King Live Up to the Hype?
July 18, 2019
The Lion King has the weekend to itself and it is widely expected to have one of the biggest openings of the year. This is true, despite its mixed reviews. In fact, it should earn more during its opening day than the rest of the top five will earn combined over the full weekend. It should also easily earn more than the top five earned this weekend last year, giving 2019 a rare win in the year-over-year competition.
The Lion King is a photo-realistic digitally animated remake of the classic hand animated film of the same name. The original film is widely considered a classic, but this film is not. Its reviews have fallen below the overall positive level. The most common complaint leveled at the film is with regards to its photo-realistic nature. Photo-realistic animals are not as emotionally expressive as more stylized hand animated counterparts. On the plus side, the buzz has been incredible and its presales have been better than any other film released this year, except for Avengers: Endgame. On the high end, the film could earn $200 million this weekend. Even the low end has it earning $150 million. I think the low end it more likely and I’m going with $160 million during its opening weekend.
Spider-Man: Far From Home will finish in a very distant second place with just over $20 million. Fortunately for the film, this will be enough to cross $300 million early on Friday and will keep it on pace for more than $350 million domestically. This is more then Homecoming made and about what the average film in the M.C.U. finished with.
Toy Story 4 should add another $11 million over the weekend, lifting its total to just over $370 million. It will come close to $400 million, but I don’t think it will get there, not without from help from Disney.
Crawl will have the worst holdover in the top five, simply because it is a horror movie and horror movies historically have shorter legs than other genres. That said, its reviews and its B from CinemaScore suggest it won’t suffer a 60% drop-off, so it should earn more than $5 million over the weekend.
Yesterday will round out the top five with just under $5 million putting it close to $60 million.
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Filed under: Weekend Preview, Avengers: Endgame, Toy Story 4, Spider-Man: Far From Home, The Lion King, Yesterday, Crawl, Marvel Cinematic Universe