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Box office: The Lion King pounces on No. 1 spot in second weekend with $75.5M
Despite a 60% decline in ticket sales, The Lion King 2019 is still the rightful ruler of the domestic box office in its second weekend, with a roar-worthy $75.5 million. So far, the family-friendly film has hunted down $350 million domestically and almost $100 million globally. Not adjusted for inflation, the remake's sophomore outing is already more than $30 million ahead of the original's second weekend haul.
The "live-action" remake was helmed by Jon Favreau, who broke new ground with 2016's reimagining of The Jungle Book, thanks to a host of state-of-the-art motion capture and CGI technology. Based on the 1994 animated classic of the same name, The Lion King tells the Hamlet-ish story of Simba (JD McCrary), a young lion prince who is exiled from his home after his father, Mufasa (James Earl Jones), is murdered by his scheming uncle, Scar (Chiwetel Ejiofor). After being raised by a carefree meerkat (Billy Eichner) and warthog (Seth Rogen), Simba (now all grown up, he's played by Donald Glover), returns to the Pridelands to challenge Scar and retake the throne.
Written by Jeff Nathanson (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales), the new movie co-stars Beyoncé (Nala), John Kani (Rafiki), Shahadi Wright Joseph (young Nala), Alfre Woodard (Sarabi), John Oliver (Zazu), Florence Kasumba (Shenzi), Keegan-Michael Key (Kamari), and Eric Andre (Azizi).
In second place is Quentin Tarantino's ninth feature, Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood, with $40 million from 3,659 North American venues. Set in 1969, the project follows fading Western star, Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio), and his stunt double, Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), as they attempt to find relevance in a fast-changing Tinseltown. Their humorous exploits are set against the backdrop of the infamous Manson-Tate murders, which resulted in the death of actress Sharon Tate and the unborn child she was planning to have with director Roman Polanski.
Having recently become the first Spider-Man movie to break $1 billion, Far From Home nabbed the third spot at this weekend's domestic box office with $12.2 million, bringing its North American pay stub to $344 million. Moreover, it's already surpassed the domestic totals of both Spider-Man: Homecoming ($334 million) and Spider-Man 3 ($336 million).
Now in its sixth weekend, Pixar's Toy Story 4 plucked another $10 million out of the domestic clearance bin. To date, the third sequel in the long-running animated franchise (one that turned Pixar into a household name) has amassed $395 million at home. Internationally, it gained another $19 million, boosting the worldwide tally to $522 million.
Lastly, the Sam Raimi-produced Crawl chomped on an extra $4 million domestically, rounding out the Top 5 spots at the North American box office. Helmed by Alexandre Aja, the alligator-based horror-thriller has made $31 million thus far. In foreign markets, it's only brought in $14 million, but with a global cache of nearly $46 million, the film has already broken even against its $13.5 million production budget.
(via Variety & Box Office Mojo)
