Despite my daydreams that Quentin Tarantino’s tenth feature film would open at the No. 1 spot at the box, a remake, of course, took the No. 1 spot at last weekend’s box office.

Jon Favreau’s “live-action” remake of The Lion King took the No. 1 spot for the second consecutive weekend, selling an impressive $75 million over its second weekend, bringing the film’s 10-day worldwide sales total to a stunning $962 million. Whoa.

So the latest Avengers film just passed Avatar to become the biggest film of all-time at the worldwide box office. Is The Lion King going to top it?

I don’t think so. I think we will see a drastic decline in Lion King pulls and it’ll end up somewhere in the $1.5 billion range. Not a number to scoff at.

Also, I suppose this means we’re going to get a whole lot of these “live action” remakes now.

And Jon Favreau is once again going to get to do whatever he wants to do next. Hopefully he does better than Cowboys & Aliens this time around. (Talk about a freedom squandered!)

Also at the Box

And here it is, the new Tarantino film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, at the No. 2 spot, selling just over $40 million over its first three days of release. Great numbers for an incredibly long, artsy, R-rated, subversive Tarantino film!

For context, Jackie Brown never hit the $40 million mark. Nor did Death Proof or Reservoir Dogs. QT’s highest-grossing film of all-time was 2012’s decent-enough Django Unchained, which sold a stellar $162 million domestically and $425 million worldwide.

I half expect Hollywood to do similar numbers. It might not sell quite as well as Django did domestically, but I think, thanks to the star power of Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio, as well as both the serial killer and Hollywood themes, Once Upon a Time will do very well in foreign markets.

I’ve not yet seen it, but I plan to fix that as soon as possible. It looks truly great to me, which is a relief, as I haven’t loved QT’s last two movies.

Spider-Man: Far from Home continued to roll at the No. 3 spot, bringing in another $12.2 million over the weekend, bringing the flick’s domestic sales total to $344 million; add in foreign sales and Far from Home has sold just over a billion in only four weeks.

Toy Story 4 took the No. 4 spot at the box, selling another $10 million, bringing the new classic’s six-week worldwide sales total to $917 million. Wow. This franchise flick business sure is lucrative.

And finally we have Crawl rounding out last weekend’s Top 5 with $4 million in sales. So far Crawl has sold $31 million (against a budget of $13.5) in just 17 days. So yes, there will be a Crawl 2. I’d bet anything on it.

New this Week

Because The Lion King, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Spider-Man are all still projected to be going strong this coming weekend, there’s just one wide release this week.

It’s a big one called Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw. Part F&F franchise spin-off, part old-school buddy cop action/comedy hybrid, Hobbs & Shaw sees Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Jason “The Bald” Statham reprising their rolls from the F&F franchise.

Joining them in this David Leitch-directed film are Helen Mirren, Idris Elba, and Vanessa Kirby.

Looks very fun. Don’t be surprised if this one runs away with the box office handily.