Hobbs & Shaw races to a $60.8 million finish line to win the weekend box office
The box office is getting some fuel injections this first weekend in August.
Hobbs & Shaw, the Dwayne Johnson-Jason Statham led spinoff to the Fast & Furious franchise, drove its way to the top spot with an estimated $60.8 million debut across 4,253 theaters. The film is also doing well overseas, taking in an estimated $120 million to propel it to an $180 million global debut.
Holdovers dominated the second and third place spots, with Disney’s live action The Lion King continuing to roar up box office, adding $38.2 million to its domestic total in its third weekend. Third place goes to original title, Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which garnered an estimated $20 million in its second weekend in theaters.
Hobbs & Shaw marks a highly anticipated spin-off for the blockbuster Fast & Furious franchise, focusing in on two of its most popular characters — Dwayne Johnson’s Hobbs and Jason Statham’s Shaw. With a reported $180 million production budget, the film landed modestly in terms of its domestic opening, but it also revved its way to the third biggest international opening of the Fast & Furious franchise behind 2017’s The Fate of the Furious and 2015’s Furious 7. It’s in sixth place for the franchise for domestic opening totals.
While Hobbs & Shaw is still part of a healthy Hollywood franchise, it is also notably the biggest domestic opening of the summer outside of Disney properties and superhero flicks. It surpasses the $56.8 million opening of another action franchise entry, John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum.
Directed by David Leitch (Deadpool 2), Hobbs & Shaw pairs up two former adversaries, American Diplomatic Secret Service Agent Hobbs (Johnson) and rogue British outcast Shaw (Statham), as they’re forced to team up to try to take down cyber-genetically enhanced anarchist Brixton (Idris Elba) when he gets his hands on a dangerous bio-threat. They are aided by a fearless MI6 agent, Hattie (Vanessa Kirby), who also happens to be Shaw’s sister. Helen Mirren, Eddie Marsan, and Eiza Gonzalez also feature.
The spinoff marks a major milestone for Dwayne Johnson’s acting career, giving him his best opening outside of the large ensemble casts of the main Fast & Furious films. They are a juggernaut franchise for Universal, bringing in nearly $5 billion in ticket sales globally. Hobbs & Shaw is the ninth entry in the car-fueled action series. 2015’s Furious 7 holds the crown for the biggest earner in the franchise with $1.5 billion, followed closely by 2017’s Fate of the Furious $1.2 billion haul. Hobbs & Shaw opened to a solid A- CinemaScore, suggesting it will continue to bolster its totals in the weeks to come.
Hobbs & Shaw was the only new title to make a wide release this weekend, leaving the other box office slots to summer favorites. After crossing the $1 billion mark at the box office earlier this week (the fourth Disney-released film to do so this summer), The Lion King continues to roar up box office bank, with an estimated $38.2 million in ticket sales across 4,802 theaters placing it squarely in second place. The film has now grossed nearly $1.2 billion globally, and according to Disney, its estimated $431 million domestic gross has surpassed the original $422 million lifetime gross of the original 1994 animated film.
After earning Quentin Tarantino the biggest opening of his career with a second place spot last week, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood continues to hold strong. Finishing in third place, it earned an estimated $20 million in ticket sales across 3,659 theaters. It fell by 51 percent from its first weekend, but continues to show strong returns for an original, R-rated release in the thick of summer blockbuster season.
Two other titles with Disney ties round out the top five. Sony and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Far From Home continues to hold tight to fourth place, with an estimated $7.8 million in sales for its fifth weekend in theaters. Fifth place goes to Toy Story 4 with an estimated $7.2 million. The fourth entry in the beloved toy franchise could end the summer as another Disney-released title to cross $1 billion — it now boasts a global total of $959 million. It also crossed the $400 million mark domestically this weekend, making it Pixar’s fourth film ever to do so.
Overall box office is down 6.3 percent to date, according to Comscore. Check out the August 2-4 numbers below.
1. Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw — $60.8 million
2. The Lion King— $38.2 million
3. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood— $20 million
4. Spider-Man: Far From Home— $7.8 million
5. Toy Story 4 — $7.2 million
6. Yesterday— $2.4 million
7. The Farewell— $2.4 million
8. Crawl— $2.2 million
9. Aladdin — $2 million
10. Annabelle Comes Home— $875,000