In other news that doesn’t surround new releases or ‘Hobbs & Shaw’ taking a whopping $110M debut in China, Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Once Upon A Time In Hollywood’ is continuing to trend well in the United States and globally, staying in the top ten for its fifth week running, and should continue that into its sixth.
The Brad Pitt-Leonardo DiCaprio comedy-drama took another $5.2M in its fifth FSS, a drop of just 32%. This is a better drop than ‘Basterds’ in its fifth weekend (38%) and ‘Django Unchained’ (36%). Both films had some help with holiday seasons and awards buzz, however with ‘Once Upon A Time In Hollywood’ Sony made the gamble of placing it in-between ‘Hobbs & Shaw’ and ‘The Lion King’.
If Sony placed the $90M-budgeted film around now in August, then it would have succeeded like it did, however it would have been hard for it to leg out like it has done over the Summer considering the vast adult competition in September.
As of now, it has a running cume of $123.3M in the US, meaning that after thirty-one days of release the Columbia film has overtaken ‘Inglourious Basterds”s stateside cume to become Tarantino’s second highest grossing film in the US unadjusted for inflation.
Thanks to the lack of competition, the 2.75 hour long R-Rated thriller has been able to mop up the releases this weekend and will continue going into the Labour Day weekend, which will be the last chance for the film to make some money.
By the end of the Labour Day weekend, it will be standing with give-or-take $130M in the US. If the theatrical run stopped then, the Oscar-tipped movie would have had 3.25x legs. This is pretty solid for a Tarantino film, let alone a Summer flick, and puts it just behind the likes of ‘Mission Impossible: Fallout’ and Christopher Nolan’s films such as ‘Dunkirk’ and ‘Interstellar’.
The good news is is that the run doesn’t end after Labour Day. Sony will continue to milk this one dry as the Summer Film Festival season begins, and we’re looking at something just south of $140M in the US for 3.5x legs.
That puts it around 2019 films such as ‘Shazam!’ and ‘Detective Pikachu’, showcasing that an original IP film that is over 2.5 hours long can still succeed in this day and age, despite the scaremongering.
It also showcases how directors are becoming the new actors and are household names. Directors like Tarantino, Nolan, Jordan Peele, Spielberg and more are becoming marquee directors, with audiences showing up because they’ve directed it, not because it stars DiCaprio or Pitt or a major film star, although those two are still pretty big eyebrow raisers.
Globally the film is at $250M as it continues to rule the Summer box office, and still continues to rule the box office as people wait for ‘It: Chapter Two’ from Warner Brothers.
Looking at how it is pacing compared to ‘Basterds’ and ‘Django’, at the very minimum we’re looking at $225M internationally alone, however with an alleged China release coming, it could hit $265M internationally alone to be Tarantino’s highest grossing film overseas.
Currently I’ll put a total of around $235M on the cards to be conservative, but I am hopeful it will pass $250M, but anyway, ‘Once Upon A Time In Hollywood’ is looking at the bare minimum $375M global.
That is an outstanding figure that puts it along the likes of ‘Godzilla: King Of The Monsters’, ‘Detective Pikachu’, ‘Shazam!’ & ‘The Secret Life Of Pets 2’. To think an R-Rated 2.75 hour period thriller-comedy that is controversial (for some reason) can achieve those numbers just shows that there is enough people for these sorts of films.
If ‘Once Upon A Time In Hollywood’ can win the Best Picture Oscar, it will be the highest grossing Best Picture winner since 2010 when ‘The King’s Speech took $414M global.
If it can pass that figure with $280M internationally, then we have to go back to 2003’s ‘Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King’ to see a higher gross.
Anyway, Tarantino’s ninth feature is looking at the very minimum of $375M global, with $400M a real possibility, it should be hailed that moviegoers are still able to distinguish good and bad films, and not eat the baby food that Disney feeds us all.
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