Once Upon a Time & The Farewell are wins for adult programming, thank god.

What did you see this weekend? 

Weekend Box Office Estimates July 19th-21st  🔺 = New or Expanding / ★ = Highly Recommended
W I D E	PLATFORM / SPECIALTY TITLES
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood	The Farewell
1 The Lion King  $75 (cum. $350.7) REVIEW	1 🔺 The Farewell $1.5 (cum. $3.6) PERSONAL & UNIVERSAL, INTERVIEW ★
2 🔺 Once Upon a Time in Hollywood $40.3 *NEW* REVIEW  ★	2 Art of Self Defense $311k (cum. $2) REVIEW
3 Spider-Man Far From Home $12.2 (cum. $344.4)  TOM HOLLAND, REVIEW	3 🔺 Maiden $204k (cum. $1.1) REVIEW ★
4 Toy Story 4 $9.8 (cum. $395.6)  PODCAST, REVIEW	4 Super 30 $189k (cum. $2.1)
5 Crawl  $6 (cum. $23.8) REVIEW	5 🔺  Pavarotti $135k (cum. $4.2)

numbers on that chart are pulled from boxofficemojo

Unless you wanna talk about The Lion King (why? it's bad!) the big story this weekend was the strong opening of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Making movies for adults is now an endangered business so we're happy that the film had such a healthy opening, the best ever for a Tarantino picture. (Given the movie's defiantly leisurely pacing, though, we have trouble imagining great word of mouth to keep it going for a long time.) Meanwhile The Farewell continued to do great business, so much so that it entered the regular top ten this weekend despite being at only 135 theaters. Go Lulu Wang and Awkwafina! Next weekend continues the annoying trend of Hollywood refusing to compete with itself with the third straight weekend with only one new wide release: Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw. After that the floodgates open with lots of new films per week as the summer movie season begins to wane. 

The Lion King's Leftovers

What did you see this weekend? Disney's photorealistic animated remake of the animated classic was all the rage as audiences stampeded to theaters like a herd of wildebeests. Though the numbers below are just estimates it's accounting for about 72% of the nation's box office. Insanity. Next time you hear someone complaining about 'Hollywood running out of ideas' check how many of Disney's recent remakes they've seen before taking them seriously.

Weekend Box Office Estimates July 19th-21st  🔺 = New or Expanding / ★ = Highly Recommended
W I D E	PLATFORM / SPECIALTY TITLES
The Lion King	The Farewell
1 🔺 The Lion King  $185 *new*	1 🔺 The Farewell $1.1 (cum. $1.6) REVIEW, INTERVIEW ★

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The Farewell has a stunning opening weekend!

What did you see this weekend?

Weekend Box Office Estimates July 12th-14th   🔺 = New or Expanding / ★ = Highly Recommended
W I D E	PLATFORM / SPECIALTY TITLES
Spider-Man: Far From Home	The Farewell
1 Spider-Man Far From Home  $45.3 (cum. $274.5) on 4634 screens  TOM HOLLAND, REVIEW	1 🔺 Super 30 $923k new on 317 screens
2 Toy Story 4 $20.6 (cum. $346.3) on 4210 screens PODCAST, REVIEW	2  Last Black Man in... $361k (cum. $3.3) on 207 screens REVIEW, PODCAST, BEST OF ★
3 🔺 Crawl $12 new on 3170 screens REVIEW	3 🔺 The Farewell $351k new on 4 screens REVIEW, INTERVIEW ★
4 🔺 Stuber $8 new on 3050 screens REVIEW	4 🔺 Wild Rose $294k (cum. $751k) on 161 screens PODCAST, SOUNDTRACKING
5 Yesterday $6.7 (cum. $48.3) on 2755 screens	5  Pavarotti $255k (cum. $3.5) on 196 screeens
6 Aladdin $5.8 (cum. $331.4) on 2557 screens  REVIEW, 1992 RETRO	6 🔺 Bethany Hamilton: Unstoppable $250k new on 205 screens
6 Anabelle Comes Home $5.5 (cum. $60.7) on 3209 screens	7 🔺 Maiden $224k (cum. $484k) on 68 screens  REVIEW ★

numbers on that chart are pulled from boxofficemojo

The weekend was very kind to Far From Home which is outpacing its predecessor and is already the 3rd highest grossing Spidey worldwide behind Spider-Man 3 (2007) and Homecoming (2017)... for now at least. The new wide releases performed around expectations. Crawl did solid business (especially given that it's budget is a low $13 million) but Stuber struggled

The best news is that it was a huge weekend for Lulu Wang's awards-hopeful The Farewell, which earned the highest opening per screen average of the year so far ($87,833 per theater). The film expands from NY and LA to other top markets next week and goes wide on August 2nd. That's quicker than we were expecting but the numbers are strong. That's good news for cinephiles since any success for artful indies is to be celebrated in this tough theatrical market.

What did you see over the holiday week?

Given the craziness of holiday weekends at the box office, we opted to wait until "actuals" were released rather than run with an "estimates" column yesterday. So herewith a complete picture of the Fourth of July weekend with all 12 pictures still in wide release and the corresponding top of the charts in platform or limited titles. What did you see this first week of July? 

Weekend Box Office July 5th-7th (Actuals) 🔺 = new or expanded theater counts / ★ = recommended
W I D E	PLATFORM / LIMITED
1 🔺 Spider-Man Far From Home $92.5 (cum. $185) *NEW*  TOM HOLLAND	1 Pavarotti [DOC] $458k on 250 screens (cum. $2.9)

2 Toy Story 4 $33.8 on 4540 screens (cum. $306.1) PODCAST	2 🔺  Last Black Man... $431k on 188 screens (cum. $2.7) ★ REVIEW, PODCAST, BEST OF

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Halfway Mark Box Office (Part 2: Of Special Interest)

As part of our midway through the year report (previously: top fives from the team , favourite male performances , and mainstream box office hits) here's a look at the box office year thus far but getting very niche with queer cinema, documentaries, movies with rave reviews, and other specialty interests. We all know that superhero movies earn a lot of money at the box office so it's more fun to dig deeper. Figures here are actuals as of Sunday June 30th for films released in the first six months of the year. We'd love to know what you make of the following lists so don't be shy in the comments, please.

BOX OFFICE IN EIGHT NICHE CATEGORIES
🔺= the movie is still in a decent number of cinemas so its numbers will go up.

TOP GROSSING FILMS THAT NEVER WENT INTO WIDE RELEASE

The Mustang

01 No Manches Frida 2 (Pantelion) $9.2 March 15th (472 theaters at widest)
02 Apollo 11 (Neon) $8.9 March 1st (588 theaters at widest)
03 The Wandering Earth (CMC) $5.8 Feb 5th (129 theaters at widest)
04 Gully Boy (Viva Pictures) $5.5 Feb 14th (270 theaters at widest)
05 The Mustang (Focus) $5 March 15th (527 theaters at widest)
06 Amazing Grace (Neon) $4.4 April 5th (263 theaters at widest)...

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